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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29582712">hide my head, i want to drown my sorrow</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/daruxxa/pseuds/daruxxa'>daruxxa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>i must believe in something (so i'll make myself believe it) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Parents, Billy Hargrove Being an Asshole, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Human Experimentation, Implied ED, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Neil Hargrove is His Own Warning, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart, Tammy Thompson Can't Sing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:08:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>40,995</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29582712</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/daruxxa/pseuds/daruxxa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It makes her wanna cry. Instead, because Tammy Thompson doesn’t fucking cry, she makes her way through the people and to the drinks, choosing the stronger one and taking a swing straight (ha) from the bottle. She doesn’t stop looking at Billy as she gulps the alcohol down, even though the fire going down her throat makes her tear up for the wrong reasons. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Hawkins will eat Billy alive, but it isn’t her fucking problem, because at this rate it’ll devour Tammy as well and she’s long made her peace with that.</i>
</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Pre-Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington - Relationship, Tammy Thompson &amp; Billy Hargrove, pre-Robin Buckley/Tammy Thompson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>i must believe in something (so i'll make myself believe it) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i used to work on this fic a while ago and thought i should give it another go so i can practice for my english class :) there are some minor changes from the original version, but most of it stays the same. enjoy x</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She gets out of the car as soon as humanly possible, even though it hasn’t stopped moving yet. Whatever. Anything to get away from Steve’s manic rambling, honestly. Taking her bag, she closes the door pushing it with her hip and fishes a cigarette out of the small pockets of her pink jacket. Apparently, designers all around the globe have decided that girls don’t need functional pockets.</p><p>“It's crap, I know...”</p><p>“No, it's not crap.”</p><p>Lighting the cigarette and taking a long drag, she desperately tries to tune out her friends’ words. It isn’t like Steve actually needs to go to college anyway, right? His dad will take care of it. Most people aren’t that lucky. She doesn’t understand why he’s so desperate about the whole thing.</p><p>“- It's not good!”</p><p>“- It's going to be, just... It needs some reorganizing. Right, Tammy? Tam!” Nancy insists from inside the car when she doesn’t answer immediately.</p><p>Tammy sighs. Why the fuck does Nancy insist? Everybody knows Steve isn’t the smartest one and Tammy seriously doubts that Nancy’s coddling is making him feel any better about it. </p><p>“Sure, Nance,” she answers anyways, watching the smoke twirl around in the air as it leaves her mouth. Something catches her eye and after looking that way, she’s forced to smile at Carol who is on the other side of the parking. Tommy H. doesn’t seem to be around. Good for everybody involved, if you ask Tammy.</p><p>Steve and Nancy seem to be over their Really Important Conversation About College and Adulting In General, because they are making out inside the car, and Tammy rolls her eyes. What has she done to deserve this? Barb was usually the one that put an end to impromptu making out sessions, the one that reminded Nancy of the existence of, like, a whole other world apart from Steve...</p><p>
  <em>But Barb isn’t around anymore, right?</em>
</p><p>Tammy takes another long, bitter drag from her cigarette. She hadn’t been that close to Barb. She was Nancy’s friend, not Tammy’s. Just another outsider to the Golden Elite of rich kids of Hawkins. But there had been this… Vibe. She was… Soft, that’s the word. Deep down. And she was always nice, if a bit too serious, and she always smiled at Tammy when they crossed paths in the corridors, and now she’s fucking gone. </p><p>Tammy knows it has something to do with little Will Byers and Steve’s pool and the fact that it has been empty ever since, but nobody tells her anything, and it doesn’t fucking help to deal with the fact that Tammy had been in that pool just a few minutes before Barb disappeared…</p><p>The sound of a car engine revving and tires screeching drags Tammy back to the real world.</p><p>Slightly amused by the other kids’ stunned faces when they see the car’s license plate (the fuck is doing a Camaro from California in Nowhere, Indiana?), Tammy watches a ginger kid leave the car and start skating, presumably to the nearby Middle School. And then…</p><p>“Who is that?” she hears one of Carol’s friends ask, loud enough for the whole fucking highschool to hear. And while Tammy doesn’t usually find herself interested in any new boy… This one does the trick, apparently. Blond mullet, bright blue eyes, unbuttoned shirt, an ass to die for, if you are into that kind of thing, Tammy guesses… She’s also willing to bet a finger that the boy staged his arrival so he could have his speakers blasting Rock You Like a Hurricane. Nice soundtrack.</p><p>Tammy takes a last drag at the same time as he does, and the movement must catch his attention because he looks in her direction and they lock eyes for a moment. He blows out a ring of smoke as he flashes a devilish smile, the kind that tells her exactly the type of trouble this newbie is. Tammy smiles as she drops the dying cigarette and crushes it under her shoe’s heel.</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>Tammy is a sophomore and the new kid turns out to be a junior, so they aren’t in class together. It doesn’t stop the Universe or some other higher power from making them bump into each other the next morning right after cheer practice.</p><p>“Get out of my way, California,” she demands once it becomes obvious that he isn’t moving out of the damn way. Cheer practice has left her all sweaty and gross and she’s ready to punch a bitch if that’s what it will take for her to get to the showers. The new kid, however, doesn’t seem to give a damn about it. He stands in her way leaning against the door that leads back to the restrooms and stopping the cheerleaders, the band dweebs and his own basketball teammates from taking a shower in peace. They don’t seem to give a damn about it either as they all basically stare at California’s shirtless self either in awe or in absolute jealousy.</p><p>“Looking good, Thompson.”</p><p>He has, like, the prettiest eyes ever and the kind of wicked smile that every Hawkins girl would die for in a heartbeat. Tammy, for better or worse, isn’t every Hawkins girl.</p><p>“How do you even know my name?” she asks.</p><p>“Everybody here knows your name, apparently.” Another blinding smile, this time followed by the flick of a pink tongue that wets his lips. Tammy rolls her eyes but smiles back. She's not surprised, honestly. Everybody knows the captain of the cheerleading team is preparing her to take over the team, everybody knows that Tammy will be the youngest cheer captain in Hawkins High.</p><p>“I see.”</p><p>“Billy Hargrove.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you.”</p><p>If he knows her last name then he definitely knows her first name so Tammy pushes him out of the way. Some of the girls around them gasp when he promptly corners her against a wall, leaning against it with a muscular arm that traps Tammy and clears the path. She allows it. At least this way people can actually leave the gym.</p><p>“So, tell me about this Tina’s Halloween party.”</p><p>“Absent parents and a bunch of high school kids getting shitfaced, more or least what the pamphlets all around the place already told you.” Tammy shrugs. What’s wrong with this guy? That shit-eating smile is still there but he’s looking at Tammy like… Like she’s some kind of puzzle, and honestly, if he starts hitting on her then Tammy might actually punch a bitch.</p><p>“Yeah, but is it worth it?”</p><p>“I guess, unless you’d rather stay at home and get shitfaced by yourself, which sounds really sad, honestly.”</p><p>“I see. You going?”</p><p>“Honey,” Tammy laughs. “If my friends and I aren’t there, then it isn’t a fucking party.”</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>“How was your morning?”</p><p>It still feels weird, being asked that question after school. </p><p>Tammy grew up basically alone. Her father died when she was still too young to remember him. Her mother never remarried and instead devoted her life to her job. They have no other family that she knows of, so it has always been Tammy alone at home… No wonder she became friends with Steve. </p><p>So, even though things have changed since the previous year, she can’t get used to it. Her mother does the dishes as she hums some nice little tune and it feels like a foreign presence in the house, and it creeps Tammy out because it shouldn’t feel like that. Trying not to think too much about it, Tammy rolls her eyes at her mother and devours two cherries in a row. There are more left but she’s still hungry, though, and thinks of sneaking back into the kitchen later.</p><p>“Like every other day. Carol’s a bitch, Tommy’s even more of a bitch, Steve is also a bitch but I like him too much to hold that against him, Nancy is less of a bitch and also mildly depressed about Barb whenever she isn’t sucking face with Steve…”</p><p>“Language, baby,” her mother reminds her, before turning around and smiling. Tammy knows that smile. It’s kind of terrifying. “I heard there is a new boy.”</p><p>“Uh… Yeah.”</p><p>“Lillian Perkins told me he’s your age, must be in your class as well,” her mother continues.</p><p>For some reason Tammy feels like she can’t breathe, and focuses on the cherries in front of her. “I think he’s a junior, actually. Might be in Nancy’s class,” she manages to blurt out. </p><p>Her mother hums and for a second Tammy thinks it’s over, but she has no such luck.</p><p>“Lillian seemed under the impression that Carol was quite taken with him.”</p><p>“Yeah... I mean, he’s cute, I guess.” Tammy manages to busy herself with the biggest cherry, sucking on it for a minute until there's nothing left but the bone and she has no excuse not to speak again. “I’ll ask Nancy about him.”</p><p>If Billy is as much of an asshole as he looks like, Nancy won’t have anything good to say about him, Tammy knows that. However, her friend’s name seems to throw her mother into another one of her favorite topics as of late.</p><p>“It’s so sad, you know, that poor Nancy is still waiting for her friend to come back...”</p><p>Tammy swallows a mouthful of bitter, bitter cherry. “I don’t really think she ran away.”</p><p>Tammy's mother turns on the radio before turning around to face her daughter. They look nothing alike. Tammy has blonde hair and green eyes, and lately a tired smile. Margaret Thompson has dark hair, eyes of an indefinite brownish-greenish color, a smile that has become kind of nasty without her daughter realizing until now.</p><p>“Oh, but she must have. You know what everybody is saying about that girl, and she and little Will Byers disappeared at the same time… I can only guess those two queers ran away together and one of them came to regret it. Do you know of any other... Deviant that is also missing?”</p><p>She asks it as casually as one might ask about tomorrow’s weather, seemingly unaware of how Tammy is two words away from a fucking heart attack. </p><p>“I… I don’t know,” the girl mumbles.</p><p>
  <em> sometimes I feel I've got to run away </em>
</p><p>
  <em> i've got to get away </em>
</p><p>
  <em> from the pain you drive into the heart of me </em>
</p><p>
  <em> the love we share seems to go nowhere </em>
</p><p>“Whatever happened to them, they had it coming.”</p><p>Aaaand that’s it, enough, Tammy can’t listen to the same old bullshit anymore. “I’m going out tomorrow, to Tina’s party. Is it cool?” she asks as she stands up, so fast that the chair screeches against the floor of the kitchen.</p><p>“Sure. Just… Be careful, baby, one can never be too careful nowadays… And try to get closer to Steve, even if he’s being a… Bitch, as you say. Boys, you know. They mature slower than girls.”</p><p>She winks as if Steve doesn’t already have a girlfriend, as if everything was a little inside joke. Immediately after she frowns when Soft Cell sings <em>this tainted love you've given, I give you all a boy could give you </em>and hurries to turn off the radio. Tammy has to bite the inside of her mouth to have something else to do apart from, like, screaming her goddamn brains out.</p><p>“... Yes, mama.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <a href="http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/40600000/Kathryn-Newton-kathryn-newton-40683351-640-421.jpg">tammy</a>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After another futile day of class (another tiring mess of CarolTommySteveNancyCheerpracticeHomeLunchRinse&amp;Repeat) Tammy listens to her mother’s car speed away and counts to a hundred before she gets up from the bed, where she has been lying down for the last hour.</p><p>Under said bed, there is a loose wooden board that she easily pushes away. And another, and another, and up to three more boards that hide a hollow space. There is where Tammy keeps anything she doesn’t want her mother accidentally stumbling into. A bottle of cheap whisky, cigarettes. Some band t-shirts she has managed to sneak into her room, several posters (including a poster of Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley), a shit ton of tapes. Sighing, Tammy chooses a tape labeled as “BOWIE” with several tiny aliens and UFOS painted on it and slams it into her boombox, turning the volume as high as it’ll go. </p><p>It feels surreal, listening to Bowie sing <em>you've got your mother in a whirl, she's not sure if you're a boy or a girl </em>in her pink bedroom, where her mother would go nuts if she ever found Tammy listening to Bowie or Queen or Pet Shop Boys or whatever slightly queer band she has managed to sneak into the house. Not that she knows many more bands anyways. Tammy is pretty sure that most parents don’t freak out about their kids’ choice in music anymore, but it seems that her mom missed that particular memo. She would go into a fucking cardiac arrest if she knew about the tapes… That is definitely not the kind of music Tammy should be listening to or singing to, in her opinion.</p><p>Margaret Thompson might be the one and only doctor that wants her daughter to be a singer. Tammy knows everything boils down to the fact that her doctor grandpa wanted a doctor son but got a daughter instead, so said daughter had to be a doctor. Or else. Tammy’s mother is nothing but a woman with unreached dreams trying to live through her daughter which, alright, fine, might be pretty common these days…</p><p>But come on, even a mother living through her daughter would have realized by now that Tammy is as tone-deaf as a penguin. She will never be a singer. Tammy knows it, Hawkins’ Choir knows it, the whole cafeteria knows it, hell, even Nashville knows it. Her father would know it, probably. Tammy’s mother always talks about how her late husband couldn’t hold a tune to save his life. Turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, or something like that.</p><p>Truth to be told, Tammy doesn’t even miss any kind of paternal presence. Her mother wasn’t really around when it mattered so her father would have probably acted just the same. Together they would have been almost as absent as Steve’s parents, so Tammy doesn’t feel like missing something that would hurt her. It doesn’t stop her from feeling like shit whenever the whole Absent Parents Stuff turns Steve into more of a douchebag, though. Is she a douchebag as well? Probably, most days.</p><p>By now Bowie is singing Let’s Dance (her tape is A Major Mess, the songs are all over the place and definitely not in order) and Tammy bites her lower lip as she drops on the chair in front of her vanity table. She looks into the mirror and hates the fact that the blonde girl in the reflection looks at home in her baby blue jumper, in the middle of all that lace and white and pink that floods the bedroom. </p><p>She can’t stand it, can’t bear to look at her reflection without reaching for the bottle under the bed and taking a swing. The alcohol burns all the way down and makes her tear up, but it also numbs Tammy enough that she doesn’t even react when she looks in the mirror again. Good. That’s the only thing she’s asking for, to be honest.</p><p>Tammy would love to do something drastic about it. Cut her hair, paint her eyes and nails black, get a piercing or two, get a proper pair of fucking jeans, trash her room and get rid of all the clothes her mother buys for her... God’s sake, she dresses girlier than Nancy Wheeler, how can that be even possible?</p><p>But instead (because she is a fucking coward) she does none of those things. Instead she starts getting ready for the party, and thinks... What can she use as fake blood?</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>The sound of Mötley Crüe and a wave of heat followed by the smell of cheap beer hits her like a punch to the gut as soon as Tammy steps into Tina’s house. </p><p>It makes her wrinkle her nose as she beelines to the kitchen. First things first, she needs more alcohol in her system before she can even begin to think of putting up with Tommy and Carol. Steve and Nancy are less obnoxious (even though they have been acting weird as fuck these last few days) but alcohol will help Tammy to deal with them as well, if she’s honest.</p><p>She’s vaguely aware of California drinking his weight in beer and being declared New Keg King by Tommy, and then bumping into Steve in that macho way guys bump into each other like some kind of pissed off animals, but Tammy doesn’t pay attention to them until California literally pushes Steve out of the way and approaches her like a predator. Oh boy, this is going to be funny.</p><p>“Looking good, Hargrove,” she says as soon as he’s close enough to hear her. It isn’t a lie. Billy is more naked than not (is he supposed to be the Terminator?) and half of the party probably wants to eat him alive. Tammy doesn’t, but she can appreciate a hot guy nevertheless.</p><p>“Likewise. Red looks hot on you.” Billy gives her a flirty wink and Tammy laughs as he states the obvious.</p><p>“Everything looks hot on me.”</p><p>However, she allows Billy to grab her hand and spin her around to get a good look. Either at her ass or at her costume, Tammy can’t be sure. She’s half-hoping that he’s at least admiring the dress because it hasn’t been easy to find the right one for her Carrie White costume.</p><p>“What’s this?” Billy asks when he notices that the red ‘blood’ covering most of Tammy isn’t makeup. He slowly runs a finger through her hair and down to her cleavage. Tammy just blinks. Does that work with every other girl? Probably.</p><p>“Cherry syrup,” she says. The music changes at that moment and Tammy smiles when she recognizes the first chords of Get Down, Make Love.</p><p>Her answer makes Billy’s eyes promptly light up like a fucking Christmas tree and he actually licks his finger. Gross. Tammy flinches when he then leans down and fucking licks a bit of syrup from her jaw, grabbing her by the waist to keep her in place. Shit. She hadn’t planned to make out with a guy at the party but, well, whatever. Tammy actually leans into him because why the fuck not, some people around them are already wolf-whistling so she might as well give them a hell of a show.</p><p>Billy’s body is strong and warm next to hers but also surprisingly soft, as Tammy finds out when she touches his abs (a girl screeches at the sight), and because she is a damn coward she lets Billy do the rest of the work. Oh boy, does he fucking deliver. In a second Tammy finds herself on the verge of being devoured by a hungry mouth and hot tongue, teeth biting into her lips and rough hands roaming free everywhere. It’s exactly the kind of kiss you’d expect from somebody that looks like Billy but at the same time Tammy feels it is as out of place as herself in her pink bedroom, and it scares her.</p><p>The same girl screeches again but it can’t be because of them because then the rest of the party goes quiet all of a sudden. When Tammy manages to break free from Billy’s mouth she finds a quite drunk Nancy covered in red punch while Steve stares in horror. Nancy quickly runs away with Steve at her heels, probably to the bathroom or wherever. Tammy couldn’t care less because Billy’s hands are still on her which means she has something to do for the rest of the night -something arguably better than putting up with Carol and Tommy. Billy smirks and walks backward until his back hits a wall, pulling Tammy along, and she might not be really into it but it isn’t unwelcomed either, so, whatever…</p><p>Or so she thinks until she sees from the corner of her eye how Steve basically gets the fuck out of Tina’s house, how a very, very drunk Nancy stumbles her way into the living room, apparently unaware of the dozen people staring at her and her stained jumper. Billy has his hands all over Tammy once again and is mouthing at her neck; it would be the perfect excuse not to do anything, but…</p><p>Red hair and warm hazel eyes flash in Tammy’s mind, and she immediately flinches away from Billy.</p><p>“What?” he frowns. He has lipstick and cherry syrup smeared all over his face so his frown looks pretty comical. Tammy makes an effort to smile.</p><p>“Give me a minute.”</p><p>She can’t even begin to explain it to herself, but… Fuck. Barb might have left a tipsy Nancy alone with Steve and three friends but she would never, ever, leave a <em>wasted</em> Nancy alone at a party with dozens of people. Which means that Tammy can’t, either. She pushes people out of the way until she’s able to grab Nancy’s shoulders with both hands, afraid that the other girl might stumble and fall down.</p><p>“What the hell did you tell him? Nancy? Nance!” she exclaims. Nancy is either half-unconscious or completely ignoring Tammy. Either way, the increasingly familiar rage starts to boil inside her and makes Tammy snarl. “Oh, fuck you.”</p><p>“Can I help?”</p><p>What the fuck is Jonathan Byers doing at Tina’s…? You know what, fine, whatever, Tammy doesn’t fucking care anymore. “Will you take her home without being a goddamn creep, camera boy?” she asks, smiling a bit at his obvious discomfort when she reminds him of the previous year’s clusterfuck with those pictures. “Great.”</p><p>She carefully drops Nancy into Jonathan’s arms, even though she doesn’t deserve it, because she left Barb alone.</p><p>But so did Tammy, after all.</p><p>“Do you…” Jonathan looks at her from head to toe, and he actually looks a bit concerned. “Do you need a ride?”</p><p>Tammy rolls her eyes. “As if. Good fucking riddance the both of you.”</p><p>She’s back with Billy before Jonathan can drag Nancy out of the house and wastes no time in pinning him against the wall and kissing the shit out of him. The music changes again and people start stomping on the floor to the rhythm of We Will Rock You. Together, Tammy and Billy taste of cherry syrup and cheap beer and cigarettes and Halloween candy and it should be disgusting but it isn’t. For the first time in months Tammy feels a little bit less alone and that might be the only reason why she’s making out with this hot kid from California that is painfully out of place in Nowhere, Indiana.</p><p>It comes as a surprise (although taking into account the earring, those glances at Steve… Maybe it shouldn’t) when suddenly Tammy feels that Billy is into the kiss as much as she is. Which is: nothing at all. He’s still kissing and groping her like his life depends on it but it all feels fake, it feels like a rehearsed film scene that two actors are struggling to act out in front of their audience of drunk teenagers. Tammy suddenly can’t fucking breathe and it has nothing to do with the fact that Billy’s tongue is finally out of her mouth and going down her jaw and neck instead, forcing her to tilt her head to give him space. It makes her look at a group of girls on the other side of the room, at their pretty mouths and too-short skirts, because if you can’t be a bit slutty on Halloween night, what is the damn point?</p><p>She doesn’t give a shit when Billy stops kissing her, when he follows her eyes and realizes what she’s looking at. Freddie Mercury sings <em>waving your banner all over the place</em>, Tammy touches her own face and uses her syrup-stained fingers to paint an inverted triangle on Billy’s bare chest, he looks like she has just punched him in the face.</p><p>It makes her wanna cry. </p><p>Instead, because Tammy Thompson doesn’t fucking cry, she makes her way through the people and to the drinks, choosing the stronger one and taking a swing straight (ha) from the bottle. She doesn’t stop looking at Billy as she gulps the alcohol down, even though the fire going down her throat makes her tear up for the wrong reasons.</p><p>Hawkins will eat Billy alive, but it isn’t her fucking problem, because at this rate it’ll devour Tammy as well and she’s long made her peace with that.</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I don’t really see why you care. It isn’t like she was our friend, like…” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Carol, shut the fuck up! I care because I have feelings, alright, because I...” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Tammy, what the hell…?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “Shut up, SHUT THE FUCK UP, you know NOTHING…! </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “Looking good, Tammy. Should we start a wet t-shirt contest?” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> “I am not teaching you how to do a keg stand. Slow the fuck down, Tam.” </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ea/77/d0/ea77d0bd650924503cec7a1bb1e56a58.jpg">tammy’s carrie white (1976) costume</a>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tammy is no stranger to waking up dehydrated, terribly hungover and lying around in some weird places.</p><p>Alright, no, scratch that. The last few months... The last year might have gotten a bit out of hand, party-wise, after... After Barb and the fucking pool and everything, but Tammy would be lying if she said it didn't start waaaay earlier. And every single fucking time was the same. Getting wasted, people passing too many joints around, half-heartedly making out with Carol because they knew it turned Tommy on, waking up in random places. Once she and Steve and Tommy and Carol managed to sneak into the high school at night and got stoned on the roof. Waking up the morning after, cold and kinda disoriented and tired wasn't one of Tammy's worse experiences, but it wasn't definitely the best either.</p><p>She once woke up on Steve's bed, back when he still used to throw parties, and felt her heart burst when she saw the poor boy sleeping on the floor so she could have the bed to herself.</p><p>Waking up on the backseats of a Camaro, however, is a new experience. It's also fucking uncomfortable, by the way, but maybe it has to do with the way she's lying on the leather seats and not with the car itself. It looks like somebody fucking threw her inside the car. Judging by the fucking car itself and the smell of hairspray and cigarettes, Tammy is pretty sure of who did it.</p><p>“The fuck is going on?”</p><p>"Welcome back to the land of the living, Thompson," Billy says from the driver's seat.</p><p>"Why are you still here?"</p><p>One would have thought that the new keg king would want to run away from a girl that could out him or something. However, Billy's only answer is a barely eloquent grunt. Tammy shifts on the seat so she doesn't demolish her spine and tries very hard not to think about the last time she was on the backseats of a boy's car.</p><p>“I tried to leave, you dipshit, but somebody got into a catfight with Carol and nearly brained herself against the keg," Billy actually answers after a few seconds.</p><p>Tammy sighs and hits her head against the seats. “Oh, fuck my life.”</p><p>“Who is Barb? You were a real bitch about her last night.”</p><p>Tammy tenses up before relaxing again. He’s the new kid, he doesn’t know. So she tells him the official version of the whole thing. About Nancy's friend Barb, about how she supposedly ran away-</p><p>
  <em> -even though Tammy knows something bad happened last night after she left Barb alone at the pool, Steve's fucking pool that nobody has put a foot into ever since Barb disappeared, and something bad happened and she doesn't know what because nobody tells her shit but it's eating her alive- </em>
</p><p>-and Billy has the good sense not to ask more questions. Completely at loss about what to do next, Tammy tries to get up and is met with the disgusting mixture of wet clothes and half-washed away, dried syrup that sticks to her body and the seats.</p><p>“What the fuck…?”</p><p>“Had to push you into the pool before you yanked Carol’s extensions off or outed yourself. Whatever happened first, it was kind of a close call. Let me tell you, people were very happy about your wet, white dress.”</p><p>Oh, dear God. Tammy slowly (shit everything's spinning) sits up. The first thing she realizes is that her hands are stained pink. She doesn't remember a lot of the night before, but if she focuses Tammy sees herself in flashes, using the syrup to paint the pink triangle on Billy's chest. Her chest feels kind of funny so she forces herself to breathe in and out a couple of times.</p><p>“So… Okay, let’s set things straight.”</p><p>“If that was a pun, I’m begging you… Just. Don’t.”</p><p>“Shut the fuck up. So, I’m a queer, you are a queer…” Billy hasn't turned around to face her since she woke up, but Tammy doesn’t need to see his face to <em>feel </em>the scowl. “What?”</p><p>“Don’t like that word.”</p><p>She shrugs. “Neither do I. But… Whatever, I’m owning that shit.”</p><p>‘My mom ranting about those queers makes me wanna call myself a queer because it would make her lose her damn mind' is still a bit too personal. Besides, Billy makes a small noise that suggests he acknowledges Tammy has a point, so it’s fine.</p><p>“My question here is, what the fuck are we supposed to do now?”</p><p>“The fuck do you want me to say? I know the drill. You don’t out me, I don’t out you, we watch our damn backs.”</p><p>He doesn’t actually say the words, but Tammy has the feeling that his last statement is actually Billy for ‘I watch you back, you watch mine’. And that’s something she can definitely get behind.</p><p>After their little talk Tammy actually relaxes enough to doze off for a couple of minutes before Billy starts to bitch about milkshakes, of all things, and makes her drag herself to the passenger seat because he won't move the damn thing so Tammy can get on the seat like a normal person. The car is still parked in front of Tina's house and she knows what people will assume, but couldn't care less. Billy is already buckling up on his seat when she manages to crawl into hers and Tammy can’t help but look at him. Even with pink syrup all over him and the face of somebody who is both hungover and sleep-deprived, he is ridiculously pretty. Many girls would kill for the opportunity to be in his car right now. Many boys would, as well. And still... Nothing, nope, zero attraction. It’s kind of funny.</p><p>“Do you think you’ll need to go to the hospital?” Billy asks out of nowhere. He starts the car and speeds away from Tina’s house before Tammy can even buckle her seatbelt, let alone answer.</p><p>“Shit!” she grumbles, hanging on to the seat for dear life. “Why would I need to go to the hospital?”</p><p>Billy frowns and looks at her face, her forehead, to be precise, taking his eyes out of the road for longer than caution would advise. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”</p><p>“Everything’s crystal clear until Nancy left, but then…” Tammy frowns when Billy drives around a curve in a way that makes her wanna puke out her stomach. “I don’t know, I only remember flashes of it.”</p><p>“I’m not surprised. I meant it when I said you nearly brained yourself against the keg. I thought you were bleeding.”</p><p>Tammy shrugs. “It was probably just the syrup, the whole point of using it was that it kinda looked like blood.”</p><p>Billy stays quiet for like the seven seconds that it takes for him to grab a tape from under his seat, slam it into the car's cassette and turn up the volume.</p><p>“Do you need me to drop you off after getting the milkshakes? Your parents must be freaking out.”</p><p>Tammy winces when the guitar riff of Back In Black threatens to deafen her. “I... I’ll tell my mom I was at Steve’s and she won’t give a shit.” She rolls her eyes as she starts to tap a finger against the window to the rhythm of the song. “Are your parents going to be mad at you about last night? You didn’t make it home because of me…”</p><p>Billy’s laugh is unexpected and dark and maniacal, and it suits him. “Don’t flatter yourself, I wasn’t even supposed to go out last night.”</p><p>“What?” Tammy frowns. Who doesn’t go out on Halloween?</p><p>“I was supposed to pick my step-sister up and take her home, but I never showed up. The fact that I decided to stay changes nothing.”</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>“Where were you?”</p><p>She can still hear the Camaro speeding away, but thankfully Tammy’s mother doesn’t seem to connect the noise to her daughter’s arrival. Tammy hasn’t even completely closed the door yet and she freezes on the spot when she hears her mother’s voice.</p><p>“I spent the night at Steve’s.”</p><p>Steve will lie for her once Tammy’s mother calls to check, that is one of the few remaining laws of nature in Tammy’s world. Besides, her mother has always liked Steve the best among her friends. Tammy doesn’t doubt she will like him even more once she learns about his unclear situation with Nancy, and will waste no time in sending Tammy over with some kind of homemade food and in her girliest clothes.</p><p>(Tammy won’t fight the food thing. God knows Steve needs to eat actual food from time to time. She’s pretty sure he would have died from inanition already if it wasn’t for the small army of his friends’ mothers preparing him casseroles. It is still both sad and funny that everybody tries to bribe their way into that poor boy’s heart with food.)</p><p>As Tammy expected, her mother hums in an obviously pleased way and then walks away. “Don’t forget about choir practice, baby. Tell them I cannot make it today, Sam needs my help.”</p><p>“Dr. Owens really needs to grasp the concept of weekends. Didn’t you help him during a session with a patient, like, two days ago? They really need to hire more pediatricians.”</p><p>“You know they won’t. Are you going for a run?”</p><p>Tammy flinches when her mother uses that tone again. She words it as a question, or a suggestion, but Tammy knows what it really is. Although… She frowns, trying to remember everything she drank and ate the previous night, the milkshakes from earlier… Yeah, she could use a run. “Sure,” she answers, trying to sound like the prospect of going for a run the morning after Tina’s party doesn’t make her feel like death warmed over. “I’m gonna take a shower first.”</p><p>“And don’t forget choir practice!” her mother exclaims as Tammy runs upstairs. Tammy rolls her eyes and shuts the door of her bedroom behind her.</p><p>She leaves the house without a clear destination in mind, although soon enough her feet carry her elsewhere. The Byers live a bit too far away from Loch Nora but Tammy decides to go running even though she has no real hope of finding Joyce at home. That woman is always working… But not that day, apparently. Tammy perks up like a fuking golden retriever as soon as she sees the car in front of the house. It’s completely ridiculous and she can’t help it.</p><p>Her good mood, however, disappears as soon as Joyce opens the door.</p><p>“Tammy, hi! Oh, did you come here running? Come in, let me bring you some water…”</p><p>Tammy doesn’t know what she had expected out of the previous year, but a tentative friendship with the local store clerk isn’t it. Not that she’s complaining about it. Tammy follows her to the inside of the house and frowns. Joyce is just as nice as always, but something feels off. Tammy studies her for a few seconds before suddenly realizing that the woman in front of her is almost shaking from anxiety.</p><p>“Is something wrong?” she asks when Joyce comes back with the water. “I can leave if you want me to...”</p><p>“No, Tammy, don’t worry…”</p><p>Tammy raises an eyebrow and gulps down the glass of water in one go. “You are basically shaking. Did something happen with your boyfriend?”</p><p>She has seen them together, walking arm in arm through the park or waiting for each other’s shifts to end. And while Bob Newby seems like a perfectly nice man and Joyce is more than old enough to decide by herself who she dates, Tammy won’t hesitate to fuck shit up if he did something to her. It’s almost a territorial reaction. Nobody hurts Joyce. Ever.</p><p>“It’s… It’s Will, actually,” Joyce admits after a few seconds. </p><p>Tammy frowns. It feels easier to beat up a man old enough to be her father than to help take care of a traumatized child. “Is he okay?”</p><p>He might only be sick, he might have caught a silly cold and that’s why Joyce isn’t at the store even though she must be skipping her shift… Joyce looks at her and Tammy’s heart falls to her feet at the look in her eyes.</p><p>“Don’t you know what date it is?”</p><p>“... Of course I know. It’s been almost a year.”</p><p>A year since Will Byers disappeared in the woods. A year since Barb disappeared from Steve’s pool. How the fuck is Tammy supposed to forget? The world won’t let her do that, even though she had nothing to do with either of the disappearances. Even though there is something going on and nobody will tell her about it.</p><p>Tammy isn’t stupid. By now she is fairly sure that something happened, that Will was involved and that the woman in front of her with pity in her eyes must know something. But after everything that happened with the kid (<em>after a fucking funeral!</em>), Tammy can’t force herself to blame Joyce for not talking.</p><p>“Apparently it’s kind of common, it happens as well to traumatized soldiers. The anniversary of traumatic events makes the trauma kind of…” Joyce anxiously starts biting her nails and Tammy has to stop herself from doing something stupid such as taking Joyce’s hand away from her mouth. “It makes it all come back, in a way. It gets worse than usual. We are trying to deal with it.”</p><p>“You know that if you need anything, at all, you can ask me. Right?” Tammy insists. Is it ridiculous to ask this to a grown woman? Yeah. Will Tammy do anything in her power to help? Fuck yes.</p><p>Joyce gives her a little smile and squeezes Tammy’s hand for a second, apparently unaware of Tammy blushing like a fucking tomato. She looks away to compose herself and frowns when her eyes land on a piece of paper on the table. Will likes to draw and he’s pretty good at it, Tammy knows this.</p><p>“Is that one of Will’s drawings?” she asks, just to be sure. She knows something’s up when Joyce avoids her gaze before answering.</p><p>“Kind of.”</p><p>Tammy stares at the messy drawing of some kind of alien creature with enormous legs and says nothing.</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>By the time Monday arrives Tammy still doesn't remember what the fuck she told Carol at the party, but her friend looks royally pissed off when she gets out of Tommy's car and he doesn't look that friendly either, so Tammy can only guess that whatever she said, it wasn't pretty.</p><p>(She really needs to thank Billy if he actually threw her into Tina's pool before Tammy could yank Carol's extensions off.)</p><p>Tammy doesn't talk to anybody, isolated by the headphones of her walkman blasting More Than A Feeling as she makes her way through the hallways. She doesn't even see her friends before walking into her classroom and sitting down. The kids around her immediately start to whisper which, honestly, it's fine. It isn't like they are Tammy's friends. </p><p>She doesn't really have friends of her same age. Carol had been quick to realize that Tammy was a popular kid in the making and quickly took her under her wing. It means that Tammy is friends with most of the older, most popular students, while at the same time people in her class won't really talk to her unless they need a way into the next big party.</p><p>This would mean a nice, quiet first period for Tammy, she wistfully thinks while taking her headphones off and putting her walkman into the bag when Mrs. Click walks into the classroom…</p><p>... But Steve can't fucking pass History to save his life, even after trying for like two years, so he comes into the classroom practically running after the teacher. Tammy raises an eyebrow. Usually he's only late on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Whatever. She watches him drop on the chair and reach into his bag. Tammy expects books, but Steve actually pulls out a damn bagel and proceeds to demolish it in barely five seconds.</p><p>“Dude.” Tammy scrunches her nose. “You are getting crumbs all over the place.”</p><p>“What? I didn't have time to eat breakfast,” Steve mumbles, finally taking out his History book after Mrs. Click gives him a stern look. “Hey, how are you doing? I… I heard about what happened at Tina's.”</p><p>Aaaand there go Tammy's hopes of a quiet period. She sighs while Mrs. Click starts talking to the class. “I don't know if you are talking about me making out with Hargrove or me fighting with Carol. Either way, kindly fuck off, Steve.”</p><p>“Come on, please.” Steve elbows her arm. “I lied to your mom for you. You can't be mad at me right now...”</p><p>“Mad at you? Mad at you?” Tammy hisses. This is fucking unbelievable...</p><p>“Harrington, Thompson, be quiet!”</p><p>Tammy rolls her eyes and makes sure to lower her voice after Mrs. Click's warning. “What the hell is wrong with you? Of course I'm fucking mad at you! Something happened to Barb in your fucking pool but you only worry about your thing with Nancy and don't even see how the rest of us…!”</p><p>Steve gives her a killing glare. “The rest of us what?”</p><p>
  <em> Fall to fucking pieces. </em>
</p><p>But it's not his fault, Tammy realizes. Steve doesn't know, never will... Unable to keep digging herself into a deeper hole, she allows her anger to deflate and shakes her head. </p><p>“Doesn't matter anymore.” Mrs. Click is writing on the board and has her back to them, so she briefly puts her head on Steve's shoulder. Behind them, somebody's chair screeches against the floor. “Tell me about Nancy, come on.”</p><p>Steve sighs and starts doodling on the corner of a page. Soon enough it starts to look like a pretty aggressive version of a carnivorous plant. “She basically dumped me. Apparently it's all bullshit, our relationship and myself included.”</p><p>Tammy actually giggles. She can't help it. Nothing fucking makes sense since that night at the pool and maybe Steve is just late to that particular party. “You are bullshit. I am bullshit. Fuck, everything feels like nothing matters anymore. Everything's bullshit.”</p><p>They don't speak for the rest of the class, much to Mrs. Click's satisfaction. But once the bell rings and people around them start to pick their stuff up... Tammy needs to ask. “Steve?”</p><p>He looks up from his bag. There appears to be another bagel in there. “Yeah?”</p><p>“Do you know... What happened to Barb?”</p><p>Steve looks pretty uncomfortable when he answers. “I… I don't know for sure. Something bad, I guess.”</p><p>“But you don't believe she ran away,” Tammy insists.</p><p>Steve looks away for several seconds and something darkens in his eyes. “No, I don’t.”</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>The cheerleaders, the basketball team and the band are forced to share the gym once again because the principal is testing their strength not to fight each other, quite probably. The cheerleaders and basketball players love each other, while the band and the cheerleaders tolerate each other, and about the band and the basket team... Most of the days it's on sight, to be honest.</p><p>The restrooms are fucking crowded as a result, so Tammy doesn't bother showering. She only has one hour left before going home and even if she stinks, many basket players skip the showers on a daily basis and are bound to stink way worse.</p><p>So Tammy is outside the gym, half waiting for Billy and half considering skipping the last period altogether, when the source of one of her problems walks up to her from the main building and Tammy barely has time to prepare herself for the impact. “Hi, look…”</p><p>“Okay, spit it out,” Carol hisses, so quietly that Tammy barely hears her voice.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Why were you such a bitch about Barb at Tina’s party?” Carol insists. “Is it because I called her a dyke? Because, honestly, you two weren’t even friends last time I checked…”</p><p>It all comes backs in flashbacks. The dim lights from Tina’s party, the music, Carol drinking too much beer and bitching about Nancy’s dyke friend, about how the school is better off without her, Tammy pushing Carol against a wall before all hell breaks loose. Breathing in and out, Tammy tries to stay calm. “I find it really inconsiderate to say things like that about a person who is missing. Her parents are still looking for her.”</p><p>“Well, good luck,” Carol snorts. “We all know she ran away to like, California or wherever people like her live. Couldn’t stand Nancy’s little thing with Stevie.”</p><p>And, honestly? It stings. It stings so badly, because what Carol is saying could have very well happened in some other universe. Tammy decides that she has had enough. “Whatever. Pleasure talking to you-” she tries to leave but Carol suddenly pushes her against the wall, hard enough that her head hits the bricks. “Dude, what the fuck…?”</p><p>“Listen, Thompson.” Suddenly Carol looks so serious that Tammy knows she isn’t messing around, for once, and she also knows what Carol really wants to talk about. And it is not about Barb. “Honestly, I don’t fucking care about… About Barb, or about why you were so mad at me on Halloween. Don’t fucking care about whatever you two did when Steve and Nancy and Tommy and me left you alone. But if you start going around, telling people about…”</p><p>“About what? About how you like to make out with girls when you drink a bit too much? About how you’ll do it even when you know Tommy isn’t looking anymore?” Tammy snarls.</p><p>“Don’t you fucking dare…”</p><p>“I don’t have to. You made damn sure that Tommy was looking, but you don’t know who else saw it.” Tammy smiles at Carol’s face, she looks like a fucking scared bunny. “I don’t have to do shit, but, if I were you, I wouldn’t go around talking shit about Barb. She was a good person.”</p><p>Tammy doesn’t realize Carol had grabbed her arm until she lets go. She’s looking at her in utter disbelief, like suddenly she can’t make sense of Tammy anymore.</p><p>“Shit,” Carol finally says after a few seconds. “You are just like Steve.”</p><p>“No, honey.” Tammy gives her a sweetened smile, the one she gives to old ladies at the chorus and to Steve’s parents the few times they are at home. “I’m worse. Don’t fucking threaten me when you were the one that used me in the first place because your boyfriend can only think with his dick.”</p><p>Carol suddenly raises her hand, Tammy braces herself for the slap…</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p>“Nobody told you not to interrupt other people’s conversations?” Carol snaps.</p><p>She doesn’t look at the newcomer, but Tammy does. She vaguely recognizes the girl from class and from the band, some pretty thing with long brownish hair and huge blue eyes. She’s still wearing the band’s uniform and carrying some instrument case that looks ridiculously big next to her, even though the girl is tall, and Tammy doesn’t know her name but would swear that her last name begins with a B and also <em>she is so pretty, what the fuck</em>.</p><p>Band Girl looks at Tammy for a few seconds, and then at Carol, and finally shrugs. The movement makes her black bracelets jingle against each other and Tammy finds the whole thing unbearably cute.</p><p>“I just thought I should warn you before Hargrove arrives and sees you harassing his girlfriend,” Band Girl says, walking past them before Tammy can even register what the hell has just happened.</p><p>“I’m not his girlfriend!” she exclaims a few seconds too late, in vain, as the girl is now too far away to hear her. And sure thing, Billy walks out of the gym barely three seconds later. Carol shoots Tammy a last dirty look and leaves barely seconds before the already familiar laugh slash bark startles Tammy.</p><p>“Making friends, huh, Tinkerbell?” Billy asks as soon as he walks up to Tammy. He's changed clothes and smells of the weird school soap instead of sweat, and that might be the only reason why Tammy doesn't slap him away when he puts a muscular arm around her shoulders and starts to walk her back to the school hallways.</p><p>“Tinkerbell?” She arches an eyebrow.</p><p>“Blonde. Small. Angry. Green.” Billy points at her cheerleading uniform.</p><p>“Nearly described yourself there.”</p><p>Billy cackles like a fucking hyena while grabbing a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it in a fluid movement. Tammy has already noticed that he gets particularly hyper after gym and she also has, like, actual functioning eyes. It isn't that hard to see it, honestly. </p><p>“I don’t know if you are trying to mess with Steve or flirt with him, but knock it off, ” she warns him in a whisper once Billy stops next to a locker that must be his, judging by the Metallica graffiti on it. “Nancy dumped him, he's gonna have a hard time.”</p><p>She has to shut up then, mostly because Billy takes the cigarette out of his mouth and basically sticks it into hers and holds it there like the asshole he is. Tammy coughs a little but mostly keeps it together. Somebody's radio is blasting Stuck In The Middle With You loud enough for the whole hallway to hear and hum along even though the song is old as fuck. </p><p>Several people stare at Tammy and Billy as they walk past but, honestly? Nothing new. They look fucking good together, Tammy knows it. Both blonde and with bright eyes, with bodies to die for. Billy still keeps the sun from California on his tanned skin (a rarity in Hawkins) and while Tammy is kind of pale, well. The tits make up for it, she guesses.</p><p>They have always fucking looked at her. Cute boys from school, tiny kids with innocent crushes, some older pervs and married guys, grandpas even. Nothing fucking new, so Tammy does what she knows best. Stands there, leans against the messed up boy she starts to consider a friend, smokes and looks pretty for the whole student body to see until the resident gay mess gets over his heart attack. To be fair, it takes him less than expected.</p><p>“Duh.” Billy desperately tries to play it cool, finally taking the cigarette out of Tammy's mouth and into his own. Nobody is telling them anything about smoking indoors, probably because they are too busy staring. “Breakups aren't shit. Plenty of bitches in the sea.”</p><p>“And I’m guessing you are bitches.”</p><p>Billy grimaces as he blows a ring of smoke into Tammy's face. “Too obvious?”</p><p>“Nah. Steve’s a great guy but he can be a bit too dense at times.” Tammy rolls her eyes. “I'm sure he wouldn't even imagine... I can't see him holding that against you, anyways.”</p><p>“If he’s such a great guy, how come you haven’t told him…?”</p><p>“I’m self-destructive, Hargrove, not suicidal,” Tammy says in a monotone tone, making him smile. “Hey, wanna skip last period? I have Music.”</p><p>The least that Tammy is subjected to the possibility of being forced to sing, the better. For everybody involved. Just trust her.</p><p>“Sure, but I need to be here when the little shits get out of class, ” Billy grumbles. “Gotta pick up my step-sister.”</p><p>He looks actually pissed off about the whole thing and Tammy is soo not getting into the whole step-sister thing. Only child privileges, sue her. “We don't even need to leave the building, I know this spot under the steps...”</p><p>“Lead the way. Also, why did Carol look so pissed off when I found you?”</p><p>“She was just trying to bully me to make sure I wouldn't go around talking about all the times she made out with me, which may or may have not happened when Tommy was no longer looking.”</p><p>“What the actual...? Carol?”</p><p>“Yup.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>apparently we are getting cheerleaders for season 4! tammy would look something like <a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EjaiJv3XgAQq4yr.jpg">this</a> during this chapter :) and i'm having a nice time imagining billy in <a href="https://sneakerfits.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/nike-stranger-things-hawkins-clothing.jpg">these</a> if he ever wore actual clothes while training lol</p><p>also, robin &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Tammy, hurry up! Your clothes are already on your bed!”</p><p>That much is obvious, and Tammy wrinkles her nose at the pink sweater and pale blue skirt her mother has put together for her. She has even chosen the light makeup Tammy is supposed to put on as well as a golden necklace with a little charm… Does that woman ever listen to her when she says what she likes and doesn’t like? Tammy knows better than trying to put on anything else, though, so she doesn’t complain. She focuses instead on getting dressed and putting makeup on as fast as possible, as her mother is always busy in the mornings and won’t be able to drive her if Tammy loses the bus…</p><p>“Baby, come on! Is terribly impolite to have people waiting for you!”</p><p>People waiting for her…? What the fuck? Tammy grabs her bag and runs downstairs. The main door is already open and her mother is there, waiting for her with a bunch of cherries in a little plastic container.</p><p>“What are you talking about…?”</p><p>“You haven't told me you were waiting for a friend,” her mother interrupts her. She’s smiling the way she does when she’s pissed off. Completely clueless, Tammy grabs the cherries before being pushed outside. </p><p>It’s way too early for this, why the fuck is there a blue Camaro in front of her house?</p><p>Billy, sunglasses on, just keeps smiling at Tammy’s mother and making a good show of ignoring the dirty eye she must be giving him behind Tammy’s back. “I think your mother doesn’t like me,” he states as he reaches out to open the copilot door for Tammy. She rolls her eyes.</p><p>“You’d have to be Steve for her to like you. How do you even know where I live?”</p><p>“Loch Nora ain’t that big. Besides, I asked Tommy. He and Carol are still mad at you, by the way.”</p><p>“Of course.” Tammy rolls her eyes. “Billy, what are you doing here?”</p><p>“What does it look like? I’m giving you a ride, shitbird, jump in.”</p><p>Whatever, Tammy is sure that a ride with Billy will be better than taking the bus. She barely has time to close the door and fasten her seatbelt before Billy revs up the engine and speeds away like a maniac, turning on the music and probably traumatizing her neighbors with Black Sabbath’s Iron Man. Tammy smiles when she thinks of her mother’s reaction.</p><p>A little yelp makes Tammy look at the backseat and sure thing, there’s that little ginger girl, holding on to her skateboard for dear life. Billy’s step-sister. And while Tammy has learned that they aren’t related by blood, it’s funny how she can see something of Billy in her expression nevertheless. It seems they scowl and pout the same way. “Hey.”</p><p>The girl frowns at Tammy for a second, as if she hadn’t expected Tammy to talk to her. “Hi.”</p><p>“Nice skateboard…?” Tammy tries. She notices a bit too late that the board is held together by duct tape, and the girl gives her a tight smile.</p><p>“Thanks, he backed over it with the Camaro.”</p><p>“Billy, what the actual fuck?” Tammy turns back around and slaps his shoulder. He doesn’t even answer, singing <em>Is he alive or dead? Has he thoughts within his head?</em> under his breath instead.</p><p>Tammy doesn’t live that far away from school and Billy drives like a maniac, so they arrive at the parking lot just as his speakers blast <em>Nobody wants him, they just turn their heads. Nobody helps him, now he has his revenge</em>. Tammy would swear her friend actually synchronizes his arrival with the music because otherwise there’s no way it just keeps happening.</p><p>She gets out of the car and watches, half amused and half disturbed, the way Billy and his stepsister yell at each other and how finally the little girl flips him off and skates away to the nearby Middle School. He swears as he turns the music off and then takes Tammy by surprise when he wraps an arm around her waist and fucking starts walking her to class.</p><p>“What are you doing?” she asks, completely at a loss. People are staring and muttering around them but that isn’t new per se. People have always stared at Tammy ever since she arrived at Hawkins and the same is happening to Billy, one gets used to it after a while.</p><p>“They think we are dating or something, right?” Billy cheerfully asks, his hand pulling Tammy closer and getting lower and lower with every step they take. The whispering around them grows by the second and he smiles at Tammy like a mad-man.</p><p>“Maybe if you put your hand away from my damn ass they wouldn’t think so,” Tammy suggests. They walk into the building and she sees Carol and Tommy near their classroom. Both look like they have just licked a lemon and it amuses Tammy.</p><p>“Probably.” Billy shrugs off-handedly before he suddenly spins Tammy around and corners her against a random locker. Somebody whistles and in another world Tammy would tell them that it’s a show, it’s all a damn show except for the way Billy looks her in the eye, which is the truest and rawest thing she has seen in a long time. “Listen, I need you to do me a favor. Consider it payback for taking care of your drunk ass the other day.”</p><p>Unimpressed, Tammy flips him off. “I would do you a favor even if I didn’t owe you one, you dumbass. What do you need me to do?”</p><p>“I’ll tell you later. Be ready after school, at your house.”</p><p>“Whatever, California.”</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>Tammy sees him again after a few hours, at the gym, and sure thing… There’s that manic Billy that both makes her smile and exasperates her to no end, the manic Billy that gets a high out of harassing poor Steve during basketball and pretty much demolishing him and the other team.</p><p>It’s kind of sad, honestly, but also pretty funny to see. Tammy has nothing better to do than to watch them because the band dweebs are doing their thing and the older cheerleaders are struggling to teach the younger ones how to perform some stunts, which really exasperates Tammy. Honestly, how difficult can it be to be aware of your own freaking body? Tammy has no trouble with it, easily twirling her body and jumping around with zero worries in her mind. That and running are some of the few things that truly make her relax nowadays because she feels in control of her body and it probably tricks her mind into thinking she’s in control of everything else. Which probably is as far from the truth as it gets but, whatever.</p><p>One way or another, that’s the reason why Tammy is happy to stand up from the gym bleachers when Hannah asks her to demonstrate the younger girls how it’s done. She grabs her left foot and bends that leg upward behind her body at the same time she bends her back, until she can almost feel her leg close to her head.</p><p>“Thank you, Thompson.” Hannah smiles at her. Behind them, some band dweeb fucks up with their instrument and is reprimanded while the cheer captain keeps on talking. “See? <a href="https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2e1tt1V4C1rnayg2o1_500.gif">That</a>’s a proper scorpion's tail, not whatever you were doing, Hurley, I’m sorry. Watch the foot secured in place by the opposite hand… In a few days we’ll start easing you back into some of the last year's tosses as three of us will be performing those. Thompson, I want you up in the air by the end of the week.”</p><p>“Thanks, Hannah.” Tammy goes back to a normal standing position and her smile doesn’t falter until Hannah walks away, until Tammy sees Sandra Hurley and some of the other cheerleaders giving her the stink eye. Those are the younger girls, sophomores like Tammy and also a couple of freshmen that should have been her friends in normal circumstances.</p><p>But Carol had pulled Tammy under her wings, had thrust her into the popular kid cliché far too early for Tammy to develop normal friendships with kids her own age. Things didn’t get much better when she got into the cheerleading team. The older and more popular girls love Tammy, because Hannah loves her as well, because by the time Tammy is ready to take over the captain spot most of those older girls will be in college or getting married and Hawkins High won’t matter anymore.</p><p>The younger ones, however? They look at Tammy and only see the future cheer captain that will probably rule the fucking school until they all leave. They see the girl that got invited to the cool parties way before them, the girl that sits with the popular kids at lunch, and they don’t lose the opportunity to remind Tammy of all of that.</p><p>In a fit of probably misdirected anger, Tammy runs up before jumping and doing three <a href="https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/the-next-step/images/2/24/Lola_tnr.gif/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20170523061917">aerial </a><a href="https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/the-next-step/images/2/24/Lola_tnr.gif/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20170523061917">cartwheels</a> in a row. She lands in a split to show off, because why the fuck not, and smiles when the other girls’ faces turn even more bitter. Hannah freaks the fuck out because Tammy could have gotten hurt (no, not really, she knows the way her body moves in the air, she won’t fall) but she looks happy as well, proud of her protegée. Some basket players are congratulating Billy on her split, which, ew, and the band dweeb fucks up and gets reprimanded once again. Tammy’s smile grows wider and she winks at those girls.</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, King Steve. How are you doing?”</p><p>Steve doesn’t look up from his lunch but he smiles nevertheless when Tammy drops on the chair next to his. He looks a bit apathetic as he speaks. “I think you are mistaking me for the actual King over there.”</p><p>Without looking, he uses his fork to point at Billy on the other side of the cafeteria. He’s sitting with Tommy and Carol, which, fine, it isn’t like Tammy is in love with the idea of it but it’s probably a good thing that one of them is on good terms with the couple. She still hasn’t had the opportunity to apologize. </p><p>Taking the cherries from her bag, Tammy huffs and rolls her eyes. “Oh, shut up. You know, once a King, always a King.” She carelessly waves her hand around. “I’ll beat up anybody who dares say otherwise, even Billy.”</p><p>“I’d pay to watch it.” Steve chuckles for a second before shaking his head. “Man, I don’t get it.”</p><p>“What?” Tammy asks around a mouthful of cherries.</p><p>“Why are you dating him? I get it, you hooked up at Tina’s or whatever, everybody knows that, but…” Steve appears to be looking for a polite way of saying that Billy is a dick but he doesn’t really find it. “I mean, the guy is an asshole.”</p><p>Tammy watches Billy steal Tommy’s Pepsi and smiles. “He isn’t that bad, I swear.”</p><p>“He’s terrorizing the freshmen, Tammy,” Steve deadpans.</p><p>“That’s natural selection and you know it, those little shits are annoying as fuck.”</p><p>Steve raises a very obnoxious eyebrow. “May I remind you that you were a little shit yourself barely a year ago?”</p><p>“Yes, and I was annoying as fuck,” Tammy says as a matter of fact.</p><p>“Nah, man, you were cool. No other freshman in Hawkins history would had been able to intimidate the highschool into setting up a search party for Barb.”</p><p>And, damn. Can’t the universe give Tammy a fucking rest? If Steve had known why she was so keen into setting up the search party… He’s too good of a person to truly hate her, Tammy knows that, but probably he wouldn’t be comfortable hanging out anymore. She won’t fucking risk that.</p><p>“You know what, I think I actually know why you are with Hargrove...”</p><p>Tammy laughs so hard that she chokes on a cherry and even Carol and Tommy look at her from the other side of the cafeteria. “Allow me to doubt it.”</p><p>“You were once the new kid as well, remember?” Steve asks.</p><p>“Yeah.” Tammy smiles. It hadn’t been fun to be the new kid in sixth grade. “And I remember a spoiled little fuck that took me in.”</p><p>In all fairness, fourteen-year-old Steve had been a major bitch in league with Carol and Tommy. But that major bitch quickly developed a soft spot for the new rich kid with an absent mother, and Tammy won’t ever be able to repay him.</p><p>Steve snorts. “Doesn’t mean that you have to do the same for him. You were the new kid with no friends, he’s a bully.”</p><p>“What can I say?” Tammy shrugs. “I’m an altruist, I like the concept of second chances.”</p><p>“Unbearable, that’s what you are.” Steve throws an arm around her shoulder and messes her hair up, making her squeal as she tries to get rid of his grip on her. Both mock-wrestle for a bit before calming down and when they lock eyes again, Steve looks kind of worried. “Now, Tam, for real. Are things… Alright? Is he an asshole to you as well?”</p><p>Tammy melts. If only she could fall in love with Steve… Why the fuck did Wheeler dump him?</p><p>“Yeah,” she answers, because it’s the truth. “But in the good sense, I promise.”</p><p>Steve doesn’t look that happy about her words. “I guess I can live with that,” he says, although it sounds like a question. The bell rings and he basically deepthroats what little is left of his lunch before talking again. “You have shit taste, by the way.”</p><p>“Thank you very much.” <em>You too</em>, Tammy could say, but she won’t, because Steve won’t be over Nancy for a long time.</p><p>“See you after class?”</p><p>“Nope, I’m skipping last period,” she says, munching on the last cherry before putting the container back into her bag. “I’d rather go for a run instead of watching Mr. Mundy struggle to turn the projector on, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Sleeping very soundly on a Saturday morning</em><br/>
<em>I was dreaming I was Al Capone</em><br/>
<em>There's a rumour going round, gotta clear out of town</em><br/>
<em>Yeah, I'm smelling like a dry fish bone</em><br/>
<em>Here come the Law, gonna break down the door</em><br/>
<em>Gonna carry me away once more</em><br/>
<em>Never, never, never get it any more</em><br/>
<em>Gotta get away from this stone cold floor!</em>
</p><p>She sprints down Loch Nora once again and smiles. It never fails, Tammy always starts running faster once she gets to Stone Cold Crazy, even now when she’s feeling kind of dizzy. She shouldn't have gone running after eating only those cherries, that wasn’t a very good idea, but whatever. She likes to run during this time of the day because almost everybody else is still either at school or at work… Nobody can see her sweating her ass off and Tammy prefers to keep it that way, thank you very much.</p><p>She must have scratched her wrist at some point during the day, maybe during cheer practice, because the sweat it’s making it itch like crazy. Tammy ignores it, trying to blow some strands of hair out of her face and ultimately stopping for a second to re-do her ponytail. That’s when she sees her.</p><p>The kid.</p><p>At first glance it would be easy to mistake her for a boy, taking into account the short curls and clothes that would look at home on some lumberjack’s kid, but it’s definitely a girl, watching Tammy from the other side of the road, the one next to the woods. It makes Tammy frown. They are not far away from Steve’s house, from the pool, and even though it won’t be dark for several more hours she doesn’t feel comfortable leaving some little girl on her own. So close to the pool where Barb disappeared and so close to the woods where little Byers got lost. “Hey!” she exclaims after a few seconds. “Are you alone?”</p><p>The girl locks eyes with Tammy and the world does a fucking backflip. There are rainbows, <em>everywhere</em>, Tammy can’t see past them, can’t breathe. The only thing she feels is the road gravel under her knees when her legs stop working and she falls down because her body doesn’t even know where up and down are anymore. That terrifies Tammy far more than the little girl. She has always been in control of her body, what the fuck is going on?</p><p>When it all goes away after several minutes of rainbows and hyperventilation, when Tammy’s vision finally clears up, the girl is long gone and she is on the ground in the middle of an empty street.</p><p>Tammy gets up as fast as she can and runs away.</p><p>She runs so fast that she is hyperventilating and choking again by the time she stops in front of her house. For a second the world around her shifts into static and Tammy fears she's going to faint right there in front of her own house. Her heart beats so fast and so hard that it might as well be trying to jump out of her chest. Tammy wants more than anything else to run, to move so fast that she leaves her body behind. The feeling scares her shitless. That hasn’t happened since… Since the pool, since Tammy woke up and realized that something horrible had happened while all of them slept through it.</p><p>It takes her several minutes to regain her breath, to be able to walk without feeling that somebody is pushing a knife into her guts and twisting it. Once she feels better, Tammy switches the tape of her walkman for one with the latest radio hits and puts the Queen one into the inner pocket of her tracksuit before walking into her house. Same drill as always, just in case.</p><p>Her mother is on the phone, or rather screaming at it, but she hangs up as soon as she sees Tammy taking a coke zero from the fridge.</p><p>“More trouble at work?” the girl tries to come up with the less suspicious question ever, even though she hasn’t got the faintest idea of what her mother actually does, or her boss for that matter. What does Hawkins Lab need a bunch of doctors for anyways?</p><p>Her mother scowls as she puts on a jacket, meaning she’s on her way out. “Like every single day as of late, honey. Listen, baby, I… I need to know where you are, okay? There’s stuff going on and I can’t be worrying about where you are. You must stop skipping class.”</p><p>“Alright, whatever.” Tammy rolls her eyes. “I’m going out later to help a friend, is that okay?”</p><p>“No, it is not okay.”</p><p>What? Since when does her mother give a shit about if Tammy does or doesn’t go out?</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Haven’t you heard what I just said?” her mother asks, looking at her in the eye. Tammy shudders. She hates when her mother looks at her so calmly, so intensely. Margaret looks like a fucking robot when she does that and it creeps the fuck out of Tammy. “You can’t go out. I need you to stay home, where you are safe.”</p><p>“Safe from what?” Tammy snorts and walks away. Safe from a weird little girl that scared the shit out of her? Weird things happen everywhere, but… Come on, this is Hawkins, not fucking Derry. “Mom, I think you are blowing things a bit out of… Ow!” she exclaims when her mother grabs her arm and starts pulling her upstairs.</p><p>“You will stay home, safe, so I can focus on my work,” her mother estates as a matter of fact.</p><p>“Mom… Mom, you are hurting me.”</p><p>It’s useless. First, because Margaret doesn’t even seem to register Tammy’s weak struggles to get rid of her and just keeps smiling. Secondly, because this has happened before. It has, and that’s why Tammy knows her mother won’t actually hurt her when Margaret throws her into her room and stands in front of the door.</p><p>“Baby, you have to stay here, okay?” her mother pleads, and that’s what always gets Tammy. Margaret is actually worried about her, and what mother wouldn’t be, after Barb? “Don’t worry, I’ll be here on time to drive you to choir practice, but in the meanwhile you will stay here.”</p><p>And then, and that’s new, Margaret closes the door and locks it.</p><p>“Mom?” Tammy asks, insecure. When did she install a lock in the door?</p><p>“It’s fine, baby, I’ll be back before you know it I promise!”</p><p>Enraged, Tammy walks to the door and bangs on it a few times. “Mom!”</p><p>It’s useless. Margaret pays no attention to her and leaves the house after a few minutes; Tammy can hear the main door and the car from her room. Alright, what the actual fuck is going on? It’s not the first time her mother starts acting like that, to be honest, but it is the first time Tammy finds herself trapped in her room as a result. There’s a working phone jack in the bedroom, with a phone and everything, but it’s useless because Tammy doesn’t have Billy’s number. She tries using a hairpin to unlock the door like in the movies but she doesn’t know what she’s doing and gives up after ten minutes of trying. Irritated, she throws the hairpin away.</p><p>Fine, this is fine. Now Tammy won’t be able to help Billy and will only get out of there to be driven to choir practice, where a bunch of old ladies will make her rehearse Christmas carols for the upcoming winter and will tell her how beautifully she sings, even though everybody and their mothers know Tammy is butchering O Holy Night…</p><p>The doorbell rings and Tammy grimaces. That must be Billy, he told her to be home after class… Well, jokes on him, Tammy will definitely be home for the time being. The doorbell rings a few more times before stopping but Tammy doesn’t even move from her spot on the floor next to the door, the house is big enough that Billy won’t hear her even if she stands up and screams...</p><p>The rock that comes flying through her open window and smashes one of the lightbulbs of her hanging lamp does make her scream. Unbelieving, Tammy stands up and runs to the window. “What the actual fuck…?”</p><p>“Why don’t you open the door, what’s wrong with you?” Billy exclaims, hands on his waist like an angry housewife. He’s next to the Camaro, that he’s kept running, and Tammy can see a flash of ginger hair on the backseats.</p><p>“Long story, I’ll tell you later.” Tammy smiles. “Give me ten minutes, and... Hey, do me a favor and put your car under my window.”</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>It’s been quite a while since Tammy has been to Cherry Lane, but it looks exactly like it did back when she had been learning to ride a bike with Steve’s and Tommy’s help and it resulted in a very painful road rash all over her right arm when she fell.</p><p>“Too different from Loch Nora for your tastes, Tinkerbell?” Billy teases.</p><p>“Nah, just… Old memories, that’s all.” Tammy smiles for a second. “Alright, what are we doing here?”</p><p>She doesn’t believe Billy asked for her help only to sit in his running car in front of what must be his house. Tammy sees him locking eyes with his step-sister on the rearview mirror for a second before turning off the engine.</p><p>“I need you to go in there and pretend to be my girlfriend.”</p><p>“What?” Tammy frowns. “Like at school or…?”</p><p>“More in a ‘Hi sir, nice to meet you’ way.” Billy spits out the words rather than saying them. “Trust me, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need this.”</p><p>“Billy, what the hell are you doing?” his step-sister interrupts them from the backseats.</p><p>He sighs and closes his eyes for a second, resting his head against the headrest. “Shut up.”</p><p>“You are going to get us in trouble…”</p><p>“I said SHUT THE FUCK UP, MAXINE!” Billy yells, his face turning red in barely half a second. “Get out, walk in there and tell them I’ll be there in a few minutes. Tam, move.”</p><p>Tammy moves out of the seat so Maxine can get out and then sits down again. The little girl throws them a glance that would scare some grown men and skates towards the house after mumbling <em>It’s Max, you asshole</em> under her breath.</p><p>“Dude, you have some serious anger issues... Alright, fine, sorry.” Tammy raises her hands in defense when Billy glares at her. “So I walk in there, introduce myself as your girlfriend, then what?”</p><p>“Then we hang out until my old man leaves, then we do whatever the fuck you want.”</p><p>“Aaalright.”</p><p>Still a bit insecure about the whole thing, Tammy uses the rearview mirror to check her hair. Thank God she took an express shower and put on some of her mother-approved clothes before leaving her house. If only she had some makeup…</p><p>Billy must be a mind reader because he reaches out to open the glove box and takes an eyeliner. “Don’t ask, that’s supposed to be from my ex,” he warns, giving Tammy the eyeliner so she can do her eyes.</p><p>“Dude, with eyes as pretty as yours I must see you in eyeliner, that’s not a suggestion.”</p><p>And if it makes Billy smile a little, that’s kind of heartbreaking because that smirk disappears as soon as they walk into his house.</p><p>It still looks like they have just moved into the place, for one thing. There are carton boxes everywhere, some windows are missing the curtains, there are no pictures on the walls. The cushions don’t match and that’s a detail that amuses Tammy. Maxine… Max is nowhere to be seen. There’s a woman sitting on the couch in front of the TV, focused on a curtain she’s sewing, until she sees Tammy and stands up with a smile.</p><p>“Susan, this is Tammy…”</p><p>“Hi!” Susan interrupts Billy, catching Tammy by surprise with a hug. She must be Max’s mom because she looks nothing like Billy and because… Well, he just called her by her first name instead of mom or something. “It’s so nice to meet you…”</p><p>“Likewise, Mrs. Hargrove.” Tammy gives her the same smile she gives the ladies at the choir, and damn if it doesn’t work.</p><p>“Maxine already told us you were bringing a friend over, Billy, but I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting such a pretty girl.” Susan smiles and winks as if the whole house doesn’t feel like a mousetrap, as if she can’t see how tense Billy looks or how Max has apparently locked herself in her room.</p><p>And then the door to the kitchen opens. Mr. Hargrove walks out in a security guard uniform, coffee in hand, and Billy fucking shrinks next to Tammy. She hates it, so, so much, but smiles at the man in front of her nevertheless.</p><p>“Neil!” Susan’s smile grows wider by the second and Tammy starts to wonder if it might be as fake as her own. “Come meet Billy’s girlfriend, Tammy…”</p><p>“Tammy Thompson, sir, nice to meet you.”</p><p>Neil looks at her from head to toe before giving her a steely smile. “I’m actually surprised to see that my son has managed to get himself such a pretty young girl,” he says. “I’m assuming you two met at school?”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Billy answers before Tammy can speak. “She’s a sophomore, but we see each other in class sometimes.”</p><p>“I’m a cheerleader,” Tammy adds, just because Neil looks like the type of father that would appreciate that. “We share the gym with the basketball players.”</p><p>“Then you’ll probably get to see my son making a fool of himself playing basketball. I don’t envy you.”</p><p>“Actually, sir, he’s really good.” For a second one could hear a pin dropping in the house but Tammy keeps on talking. “I’m afraid the Hawkins high school basketball team has nothing on the California ones.”</p><p>“Yeah, I guess so.” Neil shrugs. At least now he’s not looking at Billy anymore, focused instead on Tammy. “Tell me, have you always lived in Hawkins? We just moved here, you see, and we don’t know that many people yet.”</p><p>“Actually, no, I haven’t. I was born in Derry, Maine, and my mother and I moved here when I was twelve. People in small towns like Hawkins take a while before they warm up to newcomers but once they do you won’t find better neighbors anywhere.”</p><p>“I see." Neil stares at her for a few seconds and, whatever it is that he sees, seems to satisfy him. "Well, it’s been nice meeting you, Tammy, but I’m afraid I must go to work now. I’ll be back for dinner, Susan. And Billy…” That steely glare is back and Tammy can almost feel Billy tensing up. “Your girlfriend can stay for a while but I want no funny business in that room, you hear me, boy? And I expect your chores to be done before I get back.”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Billy answers, loud and clear like a fucking soldier, but it doesn’t matter because Neil has already walked away. Behind him, Susan smiles and it unsettles Tammy.</p><p>“What the fuck was that?” she asks as soon as they are in the safety of Billy’s bedroom.</p><p>“<em>You won’t find better neighbors anywhere?</em> Really, Thompson?” he asks instead of answering. </p><p>Unimpressed, Tammy flips him off. “Shut the fuck up.”</p><p>“Whatever.” Billy drops on his bed and folds his arms under his head. Tammy notices that there are some finger-shaped bruises on his neck but chooses to say nothing. “Welcome to casa Billy, make yourself at home and don’t fucking touch my records.”</p><p>She turns to look around. The room is kind of dark, although that must be because of the red curtain in front of the window, and… Wow, those are a lot of pictures of mostly naked girls.</p><p>“Don’t you think you are overcompensating a bit?” she asks, pointing at the pictures. Billy smiles.</p><p>“You just want a few of your own.”</p><p>“I’ll have you know that I have a poster of Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley under my bed, thank you very much.”</p><p>“Man, why would you leave her there?” Billy looks actually offended, so much that he doesn’t scold Tammy when she starts playing the Van Halen record that had been left on the player.</p><p>“My mom freaks the fuck out if she hears me listening to Queen, do you really want me to put Ellen Ripley on my room? Would you put Freddie Mercury on yours?”</p><p>“Nah, pass, Taylor is prettier.”</p><p>“You have a thing for brown eyes and brown hair, Hargrove, don’t try to deny it.”</p><p>Billy flings his pillow at her and Tammy laughs when it hits her in the face.</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>They wait until Neil leaves and then some more before leaving themselves.</p><p>“Does Susan always smile like that?”</p><p>“Like if she smiles hard enough she’ll fix everything? Yeah. Drives Max crazy.”</p><p>It’s a detail, but knowing that Billy is aware of such a small thing about the step-sister he supposedly hates… The more time she spends around him, the more Tammy feels like she can understand him.</p><p>They drop by the records store just so Billy can berate her taste in music while Tammy checks out whether the store has this new album called The Age of Consent, which sadly hasn't arrived yet. After the last few hours at his house Tammy is more than happy to indulge him, so as soon as they get out of the store and Billy suggests it they go to get something to drink.</p><p>“He didn’t even call me a faggot in front of you, I’m impressed,” Billy remarks later. </p><p>They are both sitting on the hood of the Camaro sipping on their milkshakes -Billy really does have a thing for milkshakes. He’s kept the windows rolled down and Psycho Killer is blasting from the radio inside of the car. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining (as much as it can shine in October and over Hawkins, Indiana). All in all, it should be an amazing afternoon.</p><p>It isn’t, though. Not after their little chat with Billy’s father.</p><p>“Does he call you that because he knows, because he suspects...?” she asks.</p><p>“At this point I’m not even sure anymore, to be honest.” Billy shrugs. “But I don’t think he knows for sure. Things would get much uglier around here.”</p><p>Tammy takes a sip from her milkshake before breathing in and out and stating the obvious. “He hits you.”</p><p>“Not as much as he used to do. Can’t exactly beat me up and then demand that I play skins every day.” He says it so calmly that he might as well be talking about the weather. That reasoning is so fucking wrong that it must show on Tammy’s face, because Billy is quick to keep talking to her before she can interrupt him  “So you said you got here…”</p><p>Tammy rolls her eyes at the abrupt change of topic, but allows it. By now Billy must know her well enough to know that at some point she will be back to the matter of his father being a perfect asshole.</p><p>“When I was twelve, right in the middle of my sixth grade.”</p><p>“How come that you hang out with seniors?”</p><p>“My mother met Steve’s parents when we moved into Loch Nora and we kind of… Hit it off?” It sounds more like a question than anything else. Tammy is still not that sure about how that happened. “Then I met Carol and Tommy and it went downhill from there, I guess.”</p><p>“I can’t see your mom being happy about it.”</p><p>“Oh, no, she is. In her… Well, in everybody’s mind we come in pairs. Tommy and Carol, Steve and me. People were actually shocked when he started dating Nancy, everybody thought we would get together at some point.”</p><p>It had actually felt freeing once Barb kind of joined their group. Tommy and Carol, Steve and Nancy, Tammy and... No. That would never happen. Not anymore.</p><p>“Not very likely to happen, right?” Billy accidentally voices Tammy's thoughts. The idea of Tammy and Steve together makes him snort so hard that it distracts Tammy from the hollow pain in her chest. That, and also a bit of milkshake comes right out of his nose and it makes her wrinkle her nose.</p><p>“Gross,” Tammy complains, elbowing his side. “And I wouldn’t mind. Steve is a good person, I’m sure he would try to be the best boyfriend ever of something, but… I don’t know, it would be weird. And he doesn’t deserve to be dating somebody who won’t love him that way.”</p><p>Billy grumbles something that Tammy can’t quite understand. Someday she will ask him about his poorly hidden crush on her best friend, but preferably not the same day that Billy openly admits that his father hits him. Baby steps.</p><p>“What is…?”</p><p>Tammy follows Billy’s gaze to the hem of her skirt, to the bunch of scars that peek from underneath the fabric. It’s been almost a year but they are still kind of pink. Tammy hurries to cover them with her hand.   </p><p>“What is that?” Tammy asks back. She doesn’t point anywhere and it’s kind of sad the way Billy immediately moves to cover the bruises on his neck.</p><p>“Nothing,” he says, as if those bruises aren’t in the shape of his father's fingers, as if they both don’t know it. Tammy smiles sadly and leans to drop a kiss on his cheek, trying not to cry when he flinches at the sudden touch.</p><p>“Breathe, Billy. Try to enjoy your milkshake.”</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>Tammy starts to think that sneaking out wasn’t such a good idea once Billy drops her off in front of her house and she finds her mother waiting at the door. The expression on her face is straight-up murderous. Swallowing down, Tammy makes a point of waiting until the Camaro has driven away before she starts walking to the door. Her mother says nothing when Tammy walks past her but slams the door once they are both inside the house.</p><p>“Mama, I’m so-”</p><p>The slap comes out of nowhere. It isn’t that hard, but it takes Tammy by surprise and makes her stumble into a wall. That’s what really hurts. Or maybe it’s the edge of the picture frame that hits her temple, Tammy isn’t sure. Everything is a bit dizzy.</p><p>“How dare you run away like this!” her mother yells. “You have NO idea of how worried I was when they phoned me…”</p><p>“Who phoned you?”</p><p>Tammy immediately knows it’s the wrong thing to ask, because her mother’s eyes darken again. “The ladies from choir practice.”</p><p>“Shit.”</p><p>“Language!” her mother snaps. “You missed the practice. Again. How are you going to improve if you never deign to show up!?”</p><p>When is she going to understand that Tammy doesn’t have that fucking talent in particular? She’s smart, she gets good grades. She’s best friends with Hawkins’ golden boy. She’s on her way to becoming the youngest cheer captain of Hawkins High ever. But nothing of that matters. Only that she can’t hold a tune. Only that she isn’t as skinny as she should be.</p><p>“I’m… I’m sorry!” Tammy apologizes again, wincing when the volume of her own voice makes her head hurt. How hard did she hit that wall? “Okay? I told you, I had to help a friend… He was having a hard time so we went to get milkshakes and…”</p><p>“Milkshakes?” Margaret’s voice gets higher, incredulous. She looks at her daughter as if she couldn’t stand the mere sight of her. And maybe she can’t, because she pushes her aside and walks away as she keeps ranting. “Great. Great, Tammy! Don’t come crying to me when you get fat as a cow and they kick you out of the cheerleading team.”</p><p>“They can’t do that, I’m the best of them and they know it…”</p><p>“Go run.”</p><p>But… It’s already dark outside, right?</p><p>“What? Mama, it’s almost…”</p><p>“I DON’T CARE!” her mother screams. “Go run and don’t come back until you’ve burned off that stupid milkshake. Go. GO!”</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>If the neighbors think it’s weird that Margaret Thompson’s daughter is running around Loch Nora at twenty past ten at night, they keep quiet about it.</p><p>Tammy is tired, and cold, and she can feel a blister forming on her foot because running in a skirt and ballet flats is a bitch. Loch Nora is one of the best-illuminated neighborhoods in Hawkins and yet one might think that the shadows are following her every step. Tammy used to like the night and the darkness. It never used to scare her, not even when she was little and roaming free in the streets of Derry far later than precaution would tell her. </p><p>But it all changed since Barb. Now it seems that no matter where Tammy is looking at, the darkness stares back. It’s not even heebie-jeebies anymore. At this point it makes her heart race in fear, it makes her freak the fuck out and want to get out of there as fast as humanely possible.</p><p>She could easily keep running just a little bit further and Steve would be happy to welcome her into his house, the forever empty Harrington house with its forever empty fucking pool. Tammy doesn’t know what scares her the most, the darkness or that damn pool. So she keeps running, making sure to pass by her house every twenty minutes or so so she can check if the lights are still on. Every lap makes her feel more and more stupid.</p><p>She could stop running. The curtains of her house are closed, apparently no neighbor gives a shit about the sixteen-year-old girl running around, nobody would tell her mother, she can stop…</p><p>Tammy thinks about the milkshakes and keeps running.</p><p>It’s past eleven by the time the lights go off, but Tammy doesn’t dare to go in until after she has run another couple of laps. Only then, panting and shivering under her sweaty clothes, she walks up to the door.</p><p>It doesn’t open. Frowning, Tammy tries again and gets the exact same result. She takes the spare key from under its designated pot and tries to unlock the door, but the key doesn’t even go in. Her mother must have left the key into the lock on the other side of the door.</p><p>“What the actual fuck?”</p><p>There appear to be two versions of Tammy’s mother, one that locks her inside the house to keep her safe and another one that locks her out in the dark in Hawkins. Tammy prefers not to think too much about any of them. She ends up climbing up to her window, which is much more difficult than to climb down when you have a Camaro to step on and a bitchy friend yelling at you for stepping on the roof of his beloved car. Shit, she feels like Steve when he had to sneak into Nancy’s room through her window. Not that Tammy is actually going to get to sneak into a girl’s room.</p><p>Shit. Focus, damn it.</p><p>She breaks a fingernail opening her window from the outside but finally, after a few grunts, manages to roll into her bedroom and flops on the carpeted floor with a soft <em>pof</em>. Tammy stares at the ceiling and pants and tries to ignore the wet burning in her eyes. How the fuck is this her Thursday night?</p><p>To sleep more than thirty minutes would be a miracle, she knows it, she's too nervous for it, so Tammy changes into more comfortable clothes before taking the phone from her nightstand and punching in the number. She doesn’t even think to check it, because in what world would she forget that number?</p><p>
  <em>“... Tammy?”</em>
</p><p>“Hi!” Tammy can barely contain the relief in her voice and keep it quiet. “Did I wake you up?”</p><p>
  <em>“No, don’t worry…”</em>
</p><p>“I can hang up… Shit, this was a bad idea, I’m so-”</p><p><em>“Tam, seriously, it’s fine,”</em> Steve chuckles. To be fair, he does sound quite awake. <em>“I wasn’t sleeping. I haven't been sleeping a lot these days.”</em></p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Tammy doesn’t want to ask because the answer to her question would be either Nancy or Barb, and she can’t deal with any of them right now. She can't bear to think about Barb. By now Tammy is kind of sure that she's bottling the whole thing up. One day it will explode and it won't be pretty, but she won't let that happen around Steve...</p><p>
  <em>“Are you okay? You sound weird.”</em>
</p><p>Steve’s words make her tear up once again. Arching an eyebrow, Tammy drags herself from the floor and onto the bed. “And you know that from a ‘oh’?”</p><p><em>“I know </em>you<em>. Spit it out, Thompson.”</em></p><p>“I don’t know, it’s... It’s my mother,” she admits. A single tear slips down her cheek and she hurries to wipe it off with her sleeve. “She’s acting weird.”</p><p>‘Acting weird’ is a poor summary of ‘She locked me outside in the dark and made me run for more than an hour’. However, Tammy feels like she needs to process the night at least a tiny little bit (maybe even stop crying about it!) before telling her best friend about it.</p><p>
  <em>“No offense, Tammy, but your mom is not weirder than other moms.”</em>
</p><p>“This isn’t ‘absent mother’ weird, Steve. This is ‘last year’ weird.”</p><p>Tammy can hear Steve moving and fiddling on the other side of the line. <em>“What do you mean?”</em></p><p>“Remember last year, when everybody’s mother was acting weird after the… The disappearances? And my mother got so fucking controlling and stuff?”</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah.”</em>
</p><p>It’s a stupid question, of course he remembers last year, who the fuck wouldn’t?</p><p>“Well, it’s the same. Kind of. Again. But nothing is happening this time.”</p><p><em>"</em><em>I-I don’t know, Tam,”</em> Steve stammers.<em> “Maybe… Shit!”</em></p><p>He squeals. Something falls on his side of the line, something that sounds like wood and metal hitting the floor at the same time.</p><p>“Steve? Steve!” Tammy calls him as loudly as she dares to. “Are you okay?”</p><p><em>“Yeah! Yeah,”</em> he hurries to answer.<em> “Sorry, I thought I saw… Don’t worry, I’m fine. Anyways, I don’t know. Maybe something happened at work but she didn’t tell you, and she’s lashing out at you.”</em></p><p>Steve’s sudden change of topic confuses Tammy, but she doesn’t think too much of it because she just doesn’t have the energy to do it. “Honestly? I wouldn’t put it past her.”</p><p>
  <em>“I’m sorry.”</em>
</p><p>He sounds so earnest, regretful even, that Tammy frowns. Steve might not be the brightest cookie out there, or even the most thoughtful sometimes, but he is a good person. He is kind, and weirdly selfless for a spoiled rich kid, and he definitely needs to stop feeling guilty about everything he can’t control. Shit, Nancy really fucked him up.</p><p>“It’s not your fault,” Tammy reassures him, in part because he needs to hear it and in part because it is the truth. Steve has nothing to do with Tammy’s mother’s problems at work. This time Tammy is the one to change the subject. “Hey, could you… Could you play something for me on your record player? I don’t think I will be able to sleep but my mother will freak out if she hears me listening to music this late.”</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, sure. What do you want?”</em>
</p><p>“Queen?”</p><p>Tammy hears Steve searching through his mess of a room, and a few seconds later…</p><p>
  <em>So sad her eyes</em><br/>
<em>Smiling dark eyes</em><br/>
<em>So sad her eyes</em><br/>
<em>As it began</em><br/>
<em>On such a breathless night as this</em><br/>
<em>Upon my brow the lightest kiss</em><br/>
<em>I walked alone…</em>
</p><p>Smiling just a tiny little bit, but also feeling the tears come out again, Tammy curls up on the bed and clings onto the phone for dear life.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i know that these chapters aren't very nancy-friendly, but we'll get to that in a while. just think that tammy got all the "someone i cared about disappeared" s1 trauma but 0 explanations about it, all while being both closeted and swallowing down her mourning. she's 16 and lashing out, don't take it into account.</p><p>please imagine tough bad boy billy standing next to a tammy that looks like <a href="https://thecollector.mx/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/kathryn-newton.jpg">this...</a></p><p>besides, both tammy (AND steve!!) absolutely own <a href="https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e3/56/14/e3561490ea47776c5882a4d03991249a.png">this kind of tracksuits</a> but in more obnoxious colors, change my mind, i dare you.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>it's already in the tags but this chapter in particular gets a bit more explicit with the whole implied eating disorder and implied self-harming, so i thought i should warn you guys, just in case. there are also mentions of blood, different injuries and the usual abusive parent stuff.</p><p>also, the note at the end is kind of important so please try to read it once you are done with the chapter :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Against popular opinion, Tammy knows that her relationship with food isn’t the healthiest one.</p><p>She does, really. It’s just that she tries not to think too much about it. Maybe if she doesn’t think about it, it’ll go away. After all she isn’t like those girls that faint during PE, the girls who are rushed to the hospitals leaving rumors and gossiping behind them. Tammy goes for a run every other day, she’s strong enough to be a fucking cheerleader, she’s healthy. Her obsession with fruit, namely cherries, isn’t hurting anybody. Neither is keeping a strict eye on what she eats. Almost every girl she knows does that, so it’s fine.</p><p>Hell, even her own mother does it, not like she would need it anyways. Margaret is naturally skinny, works like a madwoman and is used to doing so with little rest and little food and copious amounts of coffee. Tammy kind of envies her. She knows that her figure will get much curvier if she ever stops training, she isn’t built like her mother, hasn’t inherited her genetics. Cheerleading and running are enough to keep her body in line but Tammy needs to eat, whether she likes it or not, whether she burns it off later or she doesn’t.</p><p>Most days Tammy goes to school without having breakfast or maybe having only eaten a piece of fruit. It’s fine, she hates feeling bloated, she can always have lunch later. A big breakfast followed by hours of sitting down interrupted by cheer practice isn’t her favorite thing in the world -normally. Because after the previous night’s exercise there is no way Tammy will be able to survive her morning without at least a cup of coffee and a toast.</p><p>She resigns to a full belly during cheer practice and hopes not to puke. So far it has never happened to her, but after seeing other girls puking out their breakfasts Tammy is kind of wary. For real, she has every single reason in the world not to have breakfast -except that her stomach is roaring and twisting and threatening to eat itself if she doesn’t eat something soon.</p><p>After the events of the previous night Tammy wants to keep the distance from her mother for a while, so she decides to wait until she hears the car speeding away. Only then she does run downstairs. She is already dressed in one of her girly outfits, just in case, and has taken her school bag, ready to grab anything to eat in the scarce seven minutes she has until Billy arrives in the Camaro…</p><p>Or that was the plan, at least, before she opens the cupboard where they keep the coffee powder.</p><p>Empty.</p><p>Frowning, Tammy tries the next cupboard. And the next one, and the next one after that. All of them are empty.</p><p>“What the hell...?”</p><p>She tries the fridge then and gets the exact same result. Even the freezer is empty as well. What the fuck…?</p><p>The familiar roar of the engine and the sound of heavy metal blasting from the speakers is all the warning she gets. Any other day it would amuse Tammy, because, let’s be honest, Billy driving through Loch Nora is a public menace and her neighbors lose their collective shit almost on a daily basis. He probably does it on purpose. It’s funny to rile them up, even more when her mother isn’t at home often enough to hear their complaints about Tammy’s metalhead boyfriend terrorizing their neighborhood.</p><p>Today, however? It feels like the fucking seven trumpets of apocalypse. The music goes down for a second and Tammy faintly hears Billy yelling something from the distance -she doesn’t understand his words but one doesn’t have to be a genius to guess that he’s telling her to hurry the fuck up. She tries the pantry as a last resort and finds it nearly empty as well. There are some water bottles on a shelf so she grabs one before sprinting to the door. </p><p>On her way to the Camaro she sees that their trash is overflowing with several huge bags that weren’t there the night before. For a second Tammy just stands there and allows herself to freak out. What normal parent just throws away weeks worth of food? Who the fuck punishes their kid like that?</p><p>Tammy isn’t stupid. Throwing out <em>all the food</em> is revenge for the milkshake she had the day before, she knows it. And now her mother is off to work, and Tammy doesn’t know when she will return or if she has left any money behind. Shit.</p><p>She’s tremendously relieved to jump into the Camaro. It smells like always, like hairspray and cigarettes, and it makes her feel better straight away even though Billy is bitching about waiting for her.</p><p>“Morning,” Tammy says, choosing to ignore his tantrum.</p><p>“What the FUCK happened to you?” Max’s greeting comes from the backseat in the way of a screech that for a second surpasses the volume of the music. </p><p>Tammy’s reflex is to immediately cover the bruise on her face even though she knows it’s useless. She had hoped that it wouldn’t actually bruise, that she would be able to hide it behind her hair, but overnight it has spread from her left temple into her cheekbone and she knows that concealer won’t cover it.</p><p>Billy’s smile looks sharp as a knife. “We match,” he announces, pointing at his own black eye that wasn’t there the day before.</p><p>He looks pissed off at Tammy and she doesn’t even know why, because being some minutes late doesn’t warrant such an ugly smile. She doesn’t get to ask about it either because Billy turns up the music before slamming his foot on the gas and speeding away like a fucking maniac. They make it to the school in record time, which is saying something. Tammy doesn’t know how the fuck they aren’t stopped by some officer.</p><p>She’s about to ask what the hell is going on when Max reaches out from the backseat and turns off the music. For a second Billy is so shocked by her audacity that he just stares and says nothing, and by the time he actually reacts Max has wriggled her way between the two front seats and nobody is actually paying attention to him.</p><p>“Shithead, <em> what the actual fu- </em>”</p><p>“Do you have any concealer?” Max asks, turning her back to her brother and completely ignoring him.</p><p>Tammy frowns. “Yeah, but it won’t cover a bruise like this…”</p><p>“Do you have lipstick?” Max interrupts her.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>Tammy’s heart breaks a bit when Max shows her how to cover the bruise. First the red-pinkish lipstick that Tammy barely ever uses, so the bruise isn’t as dark against the skin, and <em>then </em>concealer. Max is like, thirteen or something, and also kind of tomboyish, and also Billy’s sister. Tammy doubts that she knows this little trick of hers just because she is into makeup. The only thing she is able to do is to thank the little girl and get off the seat so she can skate to class.</p><p>Then she tries to grab her bag and get out, but Billy is faster. He yanks her back by the wrist and reaches out to slam the door shut.</p><p>“I spill my guts to you and you can’t even do the same for me,” he snarls. He's grabbing Tammy's wrist a bit too tightly for her taste so she shoves him away.</p><p>“What are you talking…?”</p><p>“Your mother hits you.”</p><p>Tammy almost laughs. Because, honestly, Billy saying that? While sporting a black eye courtesy of Neil Hargrove? Come on. “No, she doesn’t. This?” Tammy points at the bruise. “This was barely a slap, I bumped into the wall.”</p><p>“Do you know how many times I’ve ‘bumped’ into walls?”</p><p>Tammy really, <em> really </em> doesn’t want to know.</p><p>“Billy, <em> for real</em>. She just gets… Nervous, sometimes,” she explains. “Yesterday it happened and she locked me in my room. That’s why I couldn’t open the door and had to go out of the window.”</p><p>“She <em> what </em>?”</p><p>“Yeah, whatever. It’s because of her job, you know? It happened last year…”</p><p>“Come on, not again,” Billy groans. “What the fuck happened in this hick town last year? You all need like, a collective shrink or something.”</p><p>“You know what happened last year,” Tammy sharply stares at him. “Because I told you, mostly.”</p><p>He knows the official version of what happened. But there is a true one, Tammy is sure about this, even if nobody reveals it.</p><p>Hazel eyes and red hair flash through her mind and she shudders.</p><p>“Besides, this has nothing to do with that. Now she's just stressed about her job. Last year something went wrong at Hawkins Lab and she freaked the fuck out. I kind of prefer when she’s not around,” she admits. “That’s us, Harrington and Thompson, royalty of the kids with absent parents. No wonder we became friends.”</p><p>Mentioning Steve is kind of a shitty move and won’t actually help her. Billy’s pissed-off glare tells her as much.</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>Her morning doesn’t get better. Quite the opposite, actually.</p><p>Her stomach hurts, she forgot the French homework at home, and during History she can’t focus to save her life. Tammy is miserable through all of it. Her stomach won’t stop fucking growling no matter how much water she drinks to fill it, and that’s another problem. She has emptied her own bottle and also Steve’s but the hunger is still there -and now she has to pee. Great.</p><p>“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Steve insists as Mrs. Click finishes her class. Most of the students get out of the class as fast as their legs will carry them, but Tammy just flops against her friend's shoulder. She breathes in deeply. All of Steve's clothes smell of some fancy brand of fabric softener that to Tammy means love. She can't put it in other words.</p><p>“I’m fine. Really.”</p><p>It might have sounded more convincing if her stomach stopped growling for a second. She doesn’t understand how Steve doesn’t hear it. What he must hear is the tone of her voice, though, because he looks surprised at her bitterness.</p><p>“Is everything okay back home, did anything else happen?” he asks. He eyes her suspiciously from head to toe and frowns a bit. “You can’t have gotten into another argument with your mother, you are wearing her clothes. That can’t be the reason why she’s mad.”</p><p>It has always been kind of funny how Steve always calls the clothes picked by Tammy’s mother ‘her clothes’ instead of ‘your clothes’. He might not be the brightest one out there but if there is something Steve Harrington is well-versed in, that is absent parents that turn overbearing in a snap. Tammy never needs to tell him when shit hits the fan. Steve’s able to read it in her face the same way he would see it if he looked at himself in the mirror after the sparse weekends that his parents are home.</p><p>He knows how quickly and easily anything (be it school or clothes or parties or relationships or expectations) can get out of hand for them. Tammy never needs to tell him because Steve has gone through almost the same.</p><p>Except for having to hide a huge part of himself from his mother. Except for his mother being casually cruel to anybody who is different -Mrs. Harrington is dismissive as fuck but not cruel.</p><p>Mrs. Harrington doesn’t care that much about the kitchen but at least she makes sure to leave some food behind and to check that Steve has enough money. Mrs. Harrington doesn’t throw weeks' worth of food into the trash in order to teach her kid a lesson, like Margaret Thompson apparently does. But Tammy keeps that to herself.</p><p>Steve’s words distract her from the food and her growling stomach and make Tammy think about what he's said about her clothes. She looks down at them. A skirt that looks preppy but it’s actually kind of comfy, which isn’t a completely bad thing, and a pink sweater. Her training clothing is kept in her locker and consists of generic grey sports shorts and a fucking pink t-shirt.</p><p>Tammy grimaces. She’s sick of pink.</p><p>“I’m gonna go change for practice,” she announces, grabbing her stuff and standing up so quickly that it makes Steve lose his balance and slip a bit down the chair. “See you in the gym?”</p><p>“Uh, sure?” </p><p>On her way through the corridors, Tammy takes her training clothing from her locker and throws the pink t-shirt into the first trash can she encounters. She won’t be caught dead wearing her mother’s clothes when she can’t even be fucking civil to Tammy in the first place.</p><p>She finds Billy right where she expected him to be. Junior literature class, fourth row. Slouched on the chair, booted feet crossed on top of a desk that doesn’t belong to him. Far enough from Mr. Mundy that the teacher won’t even bother to make him stop messing around during the class...</p><p>But also close enough that he can both take some decent notes and throw little paper balls at Nancy on the first row. Bill Hargrove is many things but discrete is not one of them, less of all being in the same room as his crush’s ex.</p><p>The only reason why the other students haven’t figured any of this out yet it’s because they don’t bother to look, because they must still be charmed by Billy himself and his overall I-don’t-give-a-shit-also-fuck-you attitude. They are too busy surrounding him, laughing at his crude jokes, laughing whenever any of his paper balls hit Nancy on the head.</p><p>Nancy is gripping her literature book so hard that her knuckles have turned white, and looks about six seconds away from turning around and trying to stab him with a pen. The entire thing amuses Tammy.</p><p>“Can I take your keys for a second?” she asks in lieu of saying hello to Billy. She’s had to elbow her way through the bunch of teenage boys that surround him like a miniature king’s court and Tommy doesn’t look too happy about it. As far as Tammy is concerned, Tommy can go fuck himself.</p><p>Billy either actually trusts her with the Camaro or is sick of seeing her moping around in between classes. Probably the second one. But he still throws the keys at her. He doesn’t move further than that, doesn’t even get his feet off the table, and the whole interaction is followed by a meaningless sharp remark that is most likely meant to be heard by Tommy and his bunch of jerk friends. Tammy rolls her eyes. </p><p>She doesn’t even want to drive the car, she only wants to open the trunk and search through the spare change of clothing she knows Billy keeps there. Once she finds what she has been looking for she starts to laugh. Tammy isn’t sure of what she had been expecting to wear after getting rid of her mother’s pink t-shirt, but a black <em>and pink </em> Twisted Sister Stay Hungry Tour ‘84 <a href="https://i.etsystatic.com/6271460/r/il/14b975/1425279995/il_570xN.1425279995_88cf.jpg">t-shirt</a> most definitely wasn’t it.</p><p>But honestly, to be fair? It’s kind of perfect. Tammy might be having some kind of minor breakdown over the whole concept of pink but the t-shirt is big and worn-out and feels comfy. It smells like cigarettes and Billy’s cologne, something that probably shouldn’t be this comforting.</p><p>Most important of all: it hasn’t been chosen by her mother. Margaret would go into a cardiac arrest if she ever saw Tammy in a t-shirt like Billy's.</p><p>Tammy stomps back inside and to the bathroom, finds an empty stall, uses the toilet and changes into her training sports shorts and Billy’s t-shirt as fast as possible. It amuses her, the way people stare as she goes to return the keys. Have they never before seen a girl wearing her boyfriend’s glam metal t-shirt?</p><p>This time she finds Billy leaning against a wall outside the classroom, chatting with Tommy and part of the basketball team and also snarling at any freshman that mistakenly gets too close to them. Tammy wastes no time in walking up to him.</p><p>“Thank you,” she announces as she drops the keys back into Billy’s hand. Tommy and the others are doing a bad job of pretending like they aren’t staring at her and the t-shirt and snickering, talking about how Tammy has him whipped and wrapped around her finger and God knows what else.</p><p>Billy heartily agrees with them but he also looks kind of amused when he pokes at her belly to annoy her and notes the way the t-shirt hangs loosely around Tammy. Something in his eyes softens for a second, and Tammy never ever planned any of this but shit, she is almost glad that she has Hawkins’ resident bastard for a boyfriend.</p><p>Once the collective scoffs at Tammy and the t-shirt are over she finds that none of the boys actually pay much attention to her. Somehow she ends up plastered to Billy’s side, his arm carelessly thrown over her shoulders while he shares different game strategies with the others. The exact same position that, not too long ago, would have made Tammy scoff at the girls who snuggled up to their boyfriends in public.</p><p>Maybe she still feels that way about those girls, and leaning against Billy’s side has nothing to do with it because they aren’t really into each other. Maybe she had been jealous of how easy it was for them to openly express their affections, how it was so accepted and expected that nobody ever batted an eye -the same way nobody is batting an eye at Tammy, even after the whole Twisted Sister t-shirt thing.</p><p>Maybe her brain is running low on glucose. Yeah, that must be it. Thinking it twice, the other girls with their boyfriends don’t feel any different from before. </p><p>What had Nancy said about Steve... ? Bullshit? Yeah, Steve himself most definitely isn’t bullshit, but Tammy finds herself forced to accept the general concept.</p><p>Everything is bullshit. Hawkins, Hawkins High, its girls and its boys making a show out of each other in the corridors. Pretending like they are something else, something special and unique. Pretending like people aren’t disappearing around them. Nobody seems to notice that the entire fucking city is drowning in static just like an old TV. Everything is blurry and dizzy and gray and dull, so dull that for a second Tammy has to bite her tongue to stop herself from screaming.</p><p>It’s all so fucking dull, and Billy’s dripping in technicolor. Tammy shouldn’t believe herself so above the rest of the students of Hawkins High. They are all equally attracted to him like a moth to a flame. They have no other option.</p><p>“You okay?”</p><p>Billy’s hand wiggles in front of space and yanks her back to the real world. Tommy and the others are already walking away to the gym but Billy and Tammy are still rooted to the spot. He’s staring at Tammy like he’s trying to puzzle her back together and Tammy sighs, defeated, when her stomach growls once more.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I know I’m being annoying today…”</p><p>Billy grabs her face between his hands, probably to get her to shut up. He isn't that great about communicating like a normal person. The movement is a bit too harsh and his fingers dig into her cheeks and Tammy immediately feels better.</p><p>That the biggest asshole in all of Hawkins has this ability to make her feel better… Who would have imagined it a week ago? For a second he looks completely clueless as to what to do next so Tammy doesn’t even complain when Billy kisses her in front of everybody. That’s a language they both understand, one that won’t hurt them too much. </p><p>People are staring and whispering and whistling. It feels nice, being in the spotlight once again. It's no coincidence that Tammy is on her way to becoming cheer captain and that Billy drives the flashiest car in all of Indiana. They are the same, they thrill being the center of attention, getting everybody to look at them. The closer those people look, the less they’ll actually see. The safer Tammy and Billy are. Can’t see the forest for the trees, or something like that.</p><p>Billy’s fingers curl around her jaw, her waist, a thumb making its way under the t-shirt and caressing the little patch of skin there. It feels nice, being close to someone. Tammy barely has to force herself to kiss back because unlike he did back at Tina’s Halloween party, this time Billy doesn’t seem to be trying to eat her whole.</p><p>Instead, he’s so fucking soft that it breaks her heart.</p><p>He has issues on top of issues and is a bastard in the best of cases, and yet he has the capacity to be so fucking soft that sometimes Tammy just wants to walk up to Neil and smash his face in with a bat. She’s honest with herself, and doesn’t dare to believe that it would change anything. Maybe it’s too late. But she’d do it anyways.</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>Billy holds her hand while they walk to the gym and it feels nice, Tammy is pretty sure she would try to hold his hand even if they weren’t supposed to be dating. He has strong hands, warm and firm and big enough to engulf hers. </p><p>Perfect hands, actually, if he were the one that has to toss Tammy up in the air during practice. Her teammates would rather drop her before they ever broke a fingernail. The truth is that Tammy doesn’t trust them, although she knows that they won’t dare to pull anything while their captain is watching them like a hawk. Hannah doesn’t play when it comes to cheerleading.</p><p>“Hargrove, get away from my flyer and go bounce some basketballs or whatever it is you guys do,” she barks as soon as she sees Tammy holding hands with Billy. Billy shrugs and leaves to the other side of the gym, not before smacking Tammy’s ass.</p><p>“Fuck off!” she complains, flipping him off and feeling her cheeks burn when the other basketball players start to laugh and whistle. “And you, don’t scare him away.”</p><p>“He’s already giving you his t-shirts,” Hannah deadpans, pointing at the t-shirt Tammy is wearing. “Besides, if a 5’2’’ girl like myself scares him away, then he’s not the guy for you. Come on, less gossiping and more warming up. Today you go up.”</p><p>It amuses Tammy. 'Not the guy for her'. If only Hannah knew...</p><p>Warming up is never a pleasant experience under Hannah’s almost military approach to cheerleading, but now it’s almost torture. Tammy envies the band dweebs comfortably taking out their instruments and warming up by playing little scales or silly melodies. Her stomach seems to be trying to eat itself and Tammy is so, so tired that the perspective of being flung up in the air is beginning to be a bit scary.</p><p>Steve doesn’t seem to be having a good morning either. He is already playing because sometimes the boys in the team go all macho and decide to ignore warming up, as if cramps or even injuries are girly stuff or some other bullshit. Tammy has gone to every single one of his matches so far and, truth to be told, she’s seen Steve play better. He’s slow and distracted and not even following the ball at some points. Tommy’s mocking remarks and Billy yelling something about planting his feet aren’t helping that much.</p><p>Tammy wonders if maybe she should tell Billy to calm the fuck down, and then wonders if maybe it would backfire spectacularly. She feels like she must do something, though. Billy is becoming someone very special for her but it doesn’t get close to Steve levels. He’s the brother she has never had, and he’s been dumped and he’s stressed about college and overall having a hard time. </p><p>She’s starting to get to know the real Billy. He’s entitled to be fucked up but not to treat others like this. Tammy idly wonders when it will be her time, wonders what she’ll do when Billy inevitably fucks things up with her...</p><p>A pair of fingers snap in front of Tammy’s eyes.</p><p>“Fuck’s sake, Tammy, stop staring at your boyfriend and focus,” Hannah protests.</p><p>“Yeah, right. Sorry.” In normal circumstances she would feel embarrassed, although she hadn't even been looking at Billy. However, she can see Hurley and the other girls staring at her and murmuring as they finish their warm-ups, and that sets the deal. She refuses to feel ashamed. Instead, Tammy raises a single eyebrow and looks at them in the most passive-aggressive way she is humanely able.</p><p>“Remember last year’s routine?” Hannah asks then. Tammy nods. “I’m aiming for something similar but with some changes. This time the start is up, scorpion, then double down. You got it?”</p><p>“Sure. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoJpFSEvp3A">Up, scorpion, double down</a>,” Tammy repeats the steps to herself and smiles. “What next?”</p><p>“The next couple of stunts are basically the same as last year so for now we’ll focus on this before moving on to them. Bases, with me… Come on, stop staring at the boys!”</p><p>Hannah keeps complaining about her team’s infatuation with shirtless, sweaty basketball players and Tammy can’t hide a giggle even though it earns her a dirty look from Hurley. She’s the secondary base because she’s oddly strong for a sophomore. Tammy doesn’t trust her as far as she can throw her, but it’s okay because Hannah got injured the previous year so now she’s the main base. Hannah won’t drop her.</p><p>The first few times they carry out the stunt everything goes perfectly fine. It’s not that difficult of a movement or one that Tammy hasn’t performed before, so she’s familiar with the way her body has to twist and bend and twirl in the air. Steve waves at her a bit when she’s up in the air, sweating and bending her leg behind her until it almost touches her head and struggling to keep her balance because everything around her feels dizzy and kind of jerky.</p><p>Tammy somehow manages to wave back before twisting in the air and smoothly landing on the bases’ arms.</p><p>“Can we try it again?” Hannah asks as soon as Tammy’s feet touch the ground. Tammy wants to fucking die. It must show up in her face because Hannah softens her expression. “Only once more, please, with the dweebs playing. I want to check that the routine follows the rhythm…”</p><p>The routine follows the rhythm of the school songs because Hannah has been doing this for years and wouldn’t make such a rookie mistake, but Tammy humors her. One more hour, then lunch and hopefully a nap on Steve’s shoulder. One more hour. She can do this.</p><p>Hannah goes to talk to the band captain before coming back and standing in position. The band starts playing and some basketball players look at them. For some fucking reason, Tammy's brain decides that it's a good moment to remind her of that time that Barb went to watch her training.</p><p>Fucking hell.</p><p>Tammy fixes her ponytail before going in.</p><p>Up. Back as straight as possible, left leg bent, both hands on her knee. Breathe in. Leg bent behind her back, first held with both hands and then only with one, the other arm stretched out. Breathe out. A band dweeb messes up. Breathe in. The bases thrust her up in the air once more and Tammy uses the momentum to twist her body around completely first once, then twice, then…</p><p>Then everything beneath her gives away. Instead of landing on the cradle of her teammates’ arms, Tammy keeps falling for half a second, her body shifts and she lands on her left leg. The crack is audible over her scream.</p><p>“Fuck,” Hurley mumbles. She has gone pale. She should. She has been the one to drop Tammy, she and her little back spot friend fucking dropped her, and Hannah wasn’t able to compensate for the loss of their support and...</p><p>“-mmy! Can you he-?”</p><p>Steve’s face is suddenly hovering in front of hers but she can’t quite hear what he says. Someone is crying and it takes Tammy a few seconds to realize that it’s her, that she’s on the floor and that her leg feels on fire. She tries to move it and cries out in pain. Steve’s face is shoved away from hers and replaced by Billy's.</p><p>“Tam? Tam! Are you okay?”</p><p>“Of course I’m not fucking okay!” Tammy half-scream, half-cries to his face.</p><p>His stupid medallion is dangling in front of her eyes so Tammy bats it away. She tries to grab her leg to do something, anything about the pain, but two people hold her hands firmly against the floor. One of them is Hannah, all pale and with teared-up eyes, and the other one is Billy.</p><p>“I’m going to take her to the nurse,” he announces.</p><p>“Get back to the game, Hargrove.”</p><p>Billy straight up ignores his coach’s words as he picks her up. Tammy clenches her teeth together so she doesn’t scream when the movement makes her leg swing a bit.</p><p>Around them everything is a mess. Half of the cheerleaders are yelling at Hurley and her friend and the other half, led by Hannah, are trying to talk to the boys’ coach. More like they are yelling at him as well, albeit in a more polite way. Some of the basketball players join them after eyeing Tammy’s leg that she doesn’t dare to look at.</p><p>“Come on, can’t you give him five minutes?” Tammy hears Steve trying to make the coach reason with him. At the same time, she feels Billy’s hands tightening around her. “She must have something broken, after a fall like that…”</p><p>“Mind your business, Harrington,” the coach barks back. “Somebody else will take her to the nurse. Hargrove, back to the game, <em> now</em>. If I need to ask you one more time, you are out.”</p><p>Billy glares at the coach and for a second Tammy seriously believes he is going to flip his lid and smash his face in or something, but in the end he doesn’t. Instead he mumbles an apology, carefully puts her back on the floor and stomps back into the basketball court. His anger is painfully visible in the way he carries himself and Tammy feels sorry for Steve and whoever else is playing against him. </p><p>Nobody is quite paying any attention to her anymore because now the whole cheerleading team is focused on screaming at Hurley and her friend. Tammy stands there, awkwardly balancing herself on her right leg and feeling a little lost. Surely they don’t expect her to hop all the way to the nurse, right?</p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>It’s the band girl from the other day, the pretty one with blue eyes that stopped Carol before she could slap Tammy. Her instrument has been abandoned back with the band and the director looks pissed off, but she doesn’t seem to care.</p><p>“Hi.”</p><p>“Do you want me to…?" She points at Tammy's leg and bites her lip. "I mean…”</p><p>“Yeah! Please.”</p><p>Tammy doesn't know who is more relieved that the awkward little moment is over, but she's pretty damn happy to get some help because her teammates are <em>still </em>yelling at Hurley and her friend and not at all paying attention to her.</p><p>“Okay, come on… Like this. Let’s go.” Band Girl puts Tammy's left arm over her shoulders and helps her hop out of the gym. Tammy tries not to think too hard about the girl’s firm grip on her, the way her arm sneaks around her waist both to support her and keep her in place so they don't bump into each other.</p><p>“It doesn’t really suit you.”</p><p>Band Girl's words catch her off guard and make Tammy frown. “What do you mean?”</p><p>“Twisted Sister.” Band Girl points at the t-shirt Tammy is wearing and she rolls her eyes.</p><p>“You don’t even know me.”</p><p>Band Girl’s deflates at the answer. “Yeah, I guess.”</p><p>Okay, that… Might have come off a bit harsher than Tammy intended in the first place. “But you are right,” she hurries to keep talking. “I mean, I like the stuff I’ve heard from them so far, but this is Billy’s. I’m only borrowing. I didn’t want to wear my clothes today.”</p><p>“Why? They're yours.”</p><p>Band Girl’s question is hilariously simple and obvious if one doesn’t take into account Tammy’s current relationship with her mother. And although she can’t really spill out her guts to this random pretty girl... Tammy can try to sum up the whole situation. “My mother chose them, so I hate them.”</p><p>Her answer seems to satisfy the other girl. The nurse’s office isn’t that far away from the gym and it doesn’t take them long till they are standing in front of it. The door is closed, which means that there’s another student inside at the moment, so Band Girl helps Tammy sit down on one of the chairs outside the room.</p><p>“So what does suit you?” Band Girl asks all of a sudden.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>Tammy might not be at her brightest when surrounded by nice girls, fucking sue her. Band Girl drops on the chair next to her, plants a foot on the seat and stares impatiently.  “You know.” Band Girl looks away and waves a hand. “Music-wise.”</p><p>The truth is that Tammy doesn’t even have a very definite taste in music. She makes a point of listening to anything remotely gay or sung by anyone gay in any of its variants, but she likes a bit of everything. She likes Steve’s mostly pop and mainstream music, the synth melodies that allow her to dance around in her bedroom as if her life were a video clip...</p><p>But she also likes Billy’s screaming guys, his obscure California bands that threaten to deafen her and that she never knows the name of. Hell, even some of her tapes could be easily mistaken for Jonathan’s grunge-ish ones. It’s a bit of a mess.</p><p>“Oh. I don’t know. Queen, Bowie, Pet Shop Boys...” she shrugs, deciding to stick to the most well-known names.</p><p>“... Do you have a thing for brits?” </p><p>Band Girl asks this with a completely serious face paired to an even more serious and judgemental tone. But then Tammy raises an eyebrow in response and Band Girl’s expression crumbles down in a second, showing that she had been only messing around. She lets out a giggle that sends a fucking bullet right throw Tammy’s chest. Ouch.</p><p>“... I’m sorry to tell you that I’m actually waiting for the record store to get this new British album…” Tammy isn’t even sure of why she’s babbling about her latest obsession but it’s fine, anything to keep talking so Band Girl can keep giggling in front of her. “Have you heard Smalltown Boy? No? From Bronski Beat?”</p><p>Band Girl frowns a little and, God, who the fuck gave her the right to be so pretty? Her pout is unbearably cute and she has FRECKLES, okay, and not even like the ones on Billy’s nose. Her freckles are all over her pale face and Tammy might honestly die. It makes the world get fuzzy again but this time her empty stomach has nothing to do with it, and besides it is a nice feeling. Like a tingling all over her skin. It's kind of awesome.</p><p>In the end, she’s saved by Band Girl shaking her head. Tammy isn’t surprised that she doesn't know them. Bronski Beat has only been around for a year, and Smalltown Boy is aggressively and heartbreakingly gay. It’s also a very long shot. This girl isn’t going to be interested in them, that's a fact. But Tammy really likes their single so she will happily talk about it to anybody that will listen, straight or not.</p><p>The infirmary's door opens and the nurse walks out talking to a freshman with a bandage on his arm.</p><p>"Hey, Mrs. Nurse!" Band Girl immediately calls out and then points at Tammy. "Her leg is like, this close to falling off."</p><p>Tammy hasn't looked at her own leg yet but the nurse's face tells her enough. It's ugly. The woman hurries back inside to prepare everything and Tammy softly elbows Band Girl.</p><p>“You are missing out, by the way. About Bronski Beat.”</p><p>“I'll try to check them out." Band Girl promises before tilting her head. The tingling on Tammy's skin intensifies. "Do you know what I’m actually missing?”</p><p>“Band practice?” Tammy guesses.</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>She doesn't look that happy about leaving her alone so Tammy dismisses her quickly, doesn't want her to get in trouble with the band because of her. “Don’t worry, go. Thanks for helping me.”</p><p>“I hope it gets better," Band Girl says, eyeing Tammy's leg with wary blue eyes. Then she catches Tammy completely off-guard when she winks and blows her a kiss before walking away. "Bye!”</p><p>Tammy stares at her until Band Girl turns the corner on the corridor and then promptly proceeds to bang her head against the wall behind her. Band Girl. <em>Band Girl. </em>What the actual fuck? Has she really been stupid enough to talk to this girl for like twenty minutes without getting her name? Jesus Christ, Tammy is utterly useless. But at the same time... Come on, who could blame her? Band Girl was so fucking nice that it even distracted her from the pain.</p><p>Talking about that...</p><p>She breathes in deeply and braces herself. It doesn't even hurt anymore, she must be in shock. It's not going to be pretty either. Even the basketball players looked uneasy after seeing her leg, and those guys are used to seeing injuries... Trying to think about it as ripping off a bandaid, Tammy breathes in again and looks at her leg.</p><p>Her heart skips a beat. It can't be. She must be having hallucinations. It can't be.</p><p>"I'll be with you in two minutes, dear!" the nurse exclaims from inside the infirmary. "Hang on!"</p><p>Tammy nods absentmindedly. She almost doesn't even hear the nurse. She's far more focused on trying to come up with an explanation for the way the huge bruise that had been forming on her skin is now fading away in front of her very eyes.</p><p>Once the purple clears away it reveals the shape of her bone (her tibia? Yeah, that's her tibia, she's pretty sure), broken and twisted in such a way that it presses up from underneath the skin. Tammy can't fucking believe her eyes when the bone suddenly <em>pops! </em>back into place and the pressure painlessly disappears. </p><p>A drop of blood falls on her leg and makes Tammy flinch. Great, is she having some kind of aneurysm as well, on top of fucking seeing things? She uses the back of her hand to clean the blood off her nose but barely pays attention to it.</p><p>For some reason, Tammy thinks about the girl she saw barely a day ago while she went running. The little one, with curly hair and lumberjack clothing, the one that made Tammy’s world go all upside-down and full of rainbows. Tammy thinks of the girl and shudders.</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>After... Whatever happened with her leg (and after some very awkward minutes with the school nurse) Tammy definitely isn't up to punish herself via choir practice. She pretends to be getting ready for it but once her mother leaves for work Tammy changes into more comfortable clothes, grabs a bag and sits in front of the house, waiting for Billy to pick her up.</p><p>"How's your leg?" he asks as soon as she gets into the Camaro.</p><p>Tammy shrugs as she puts on the seatbelt. She's been pretending to limp around just in case. "Good. It wasn't as gruesome as it first seemed."</p><p>It's such a bullshit excuse that even Max, from the backseat, starts to ask about Tammy's leg. The only reason why Billy believes her it's because he already has one too many things to think about. Maintaining decent grades at school, demolishing his basketball teammates every time they practice, driving his sister around, pretending to date a lesbian, staying closeted to the town in general and his father in particular... The poor boy's busy.</p><p>“Don’t you have choir practice or something?” he asks when he drives by the church.</p><p>Tammy looks at all those cars parked in front of it and swallows down. “Yeah.”</p><p>“Your mother's gonna get mad.”</p><p>For a second he looks at her the same way he looks at his step-sister, seems to be entertaining the idea of parking in front of the church and throwing Tammy out of the Camaro pretty much the same way he does whenever he drives Max somewhere.</p><p>"Are you going to do something about it?" Tammy asks. She tenses up when he doesn't immediately answer, but then relaxes once he shrugs.</p><p>"Yeah, no fucking way. Deal with your own shitty parent."</p><p>Which, loosely translated, means something like 'I already have to be responsible for my sister, I'm not going to keep an eye on you as well, fuck off'.</p><p>Tammy really doesn't envy him. Keeping track of a troublemaking thirteen (fourteen? How old is Max anyways?) year-old kid is a pain in the ass by itself. And that's not even taking Neil into account. Tammy is sure that any minor mistake from Max turns into a major punishment for Billy, although she doesn't dare to voice it.</p><p>In the meantime, Billy and Max have started arguing about something that happened back in California. Tammy doesn't understand half of it and the loud music and increasingly louder words aren't helping. The siblings throw around the names 'Sid' and 'Nate' like rocks, they mean to hurt each other -and they are succeeding.</p><p>Rage makes Billy drive into the arcade's parking lot faster than caution would advise and he almost runs over a kid, although he slams on the breaks on time. The Camaro brusquely jerks to a stop and shakes the three of them but not even that is enough to make the siblings stop screaming at each other. The whole thing is almost drowning out whatever loud metal music Billy's speakers are blasting.</p><p>In the end Max doesn't even wait until Tammy gets out of the seat. Instead, the girl crawls all over her in her hurry to get out of the car, slamming the door close once she's out and screaming some more at Billy before flipping them off and walking into the arcade.</p><p>"Jesus fucking Christ!" Billy yells. "Fucking brat! You're DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?"</p><p>"Billy..."</p><p>"WHAT?" he screams into Tammy's face. Unimpressed, she raises an eyebrow and waits until he slowly starts to deflate. "... Sorry."</p><p>"I'd mess with you about those anger issues, but that wouldn't be very cool," Tammy admits. She warily eyes Billy, who is trying to breathe slower, and sighs. Fuck, she doesn't know how to do this, she's not a fucking shrink. "You alright there?"</p><p>He doesn't immediately answer, taking his time instead to grab a cigarette and light it. "Sometimes... Sometimes I just get really fucking angry. Max doesn't help," Billy eventually mumbles around the cigarette.</p><p>“Was it always like this?” Tammy asks, deciding to file the anger part for later. She's also sincerely interested. She's an only child and although she has shared a lot with Steve, it's just not the same as having a little sibling. Not to talk about a little sibling from another mother.</p><p>Billy, however, seems confused. “What?”</p><p>“I mean… You can’t have hated her ever since she came into your life," Tammy wonders. "Right?”</p><p>“It hasn’t been that long.”</p><p>“Since you hate her?”</p><p>He flinches and for a second Tammy thinks that she might have pushed a bit too much, too harsh, too soon. However, Billy sighs and drops his head against the headrest. “Since her mother dropped her in my way and made her my responsibility.”</p><p>He says that word, responsibility, in a weird way. As if it was supposed to be written with a capital R.</p><p>"I don't know what to tell you," he continues as he takes a drag on the cigarette. "I fucked her over, back in California, so she fucked me over in return. It has always been like that."</p><p>Tammy bites her lower lip, remembering the heated argument from barely ten minutes ago and the way Billy had nearly lost control of the car. "I don't know why, but I feel like one of those 'fucking overs' was worse than the other one."</p><p>“Shut the fuck up, you know nothing, you..." For a second it seems that Billy is about to punch the steering wheel but instead he grabs it with his free hand, so tightly that his knuckles turn white. "You shouldn’t care this much.”</p><p>He’s lowered the cigarette and he’s looking her in the eyes, serious and stern and nothing at all like himself. Tammy sighs and steals the cigarette from him, taking a drag before speaking.</p><p>“I’m going to fucking care about you, on purpose, so stop being a little bitch about it and deal with it.”</p><p>She looks away before she can see Billy's reaction because she isn't sure she would be able to handle it right now. He doesn't answer, and Tammy doesn't push it.</p><p>It feels like they have both reached their emotional quota for the day and nobody really wants to keep talking, so they fall into a comfortable silence, listening to the radio and passing cigarettes back and forth. The speakers are blasting the music a bit too loudly and Tammy can almost feel herself losing hearing, but a bunch of mothers taking their kids to the arcade give the Camaro a really nasty look and it's amusing enough to make it all worth it. </p><p>
  <em>I want ya tonite, I want ya with me</em><br/>
<em>Make me guilty of love in the first degree</em><br/>
<em>You want it all right... We're goin' in style</em><br/>
<em>Say you walk right - you talk right - and your hair's so wild... </em>
</p><p>She hasn't heard the song before. At first it makes her glance at Billy because... Well. 'Guilty of love in the first degree'? 'Hair so wild'? It's kind of obvious.</p><p>However, as the song keeps playing Tammy's mind keeps wandering around. Soon it starts to picture dirty blond long hair instead of sunkissed bright curls, lots of freckles on a pale face, and Tammy sighs. She can't stop thinking about Band Girl.</p><p>Resigned, she glances back at Billy and finds him humming along to the music and pretending that the steering wheel is a drum set. It's such a nice and unexpected sight that Tammy almost wishes that Jonathan was there to snap a pic of Billy like that, relaxed and goofing around just for once.</p><p>For a second Tammy considers if maybe she should tell him about Band Girl but in the end decides against it. It's not like Band Girl is gay or anything, and honestly? She would rather not deal with Billy's mocking and teasing, as well-intended as it may be.</p><p>So she says nothing, and tries to think about literally anything else, and the music keeps playing. Tammy drops her head against the window and watches the kids running into and out of the arcade. They are only two or three years younger than Tammy, but they seem so little... She can barely imagine herself at their age, doesn't feel right. Looking at her left, Tammy stares at Billy and tries to imagine him at twelve or thirteen. He must have been really cute, she's sure of that.</p><p>"I need to grab some shit from the store," he suddenly announces after a few more songs, starting the Camaro. "Wanna come along? Or do you want me to drop you off?"</p><p>"I'll go with you."</p><p>There's nothing else that Tammy wants more than to stay away from her mother for some more time. The missed choir practice comes back to her mind and makes her bite her lower lip. Her mother is going to be mad about that one. If Billy notices her mood darkening by the second, he doesn't acknowledge it and starts driving to Melvald's instead. The store makes her think of Joyce, who in turn makes her think of...</p><p>“You know what?" Tammy asks to herself out loud, squirming around the seat so she can look at the arcade before they get too far away. "This is weird.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“That little bunch of nerds Max hangs out with, they should be here.”</p><p>She has seen them following Max around. Will -Joyce's youngest kid, Mike -Nancy's brother, a black kid and a curly-haired one. Tammy doesn't know all of their names but she has seen them around on Halloween dressed up in their meticulously detailed Ghostbusters costumes. They had lights and everything. Those kids are the kind of nerds that probably get bullied, and seem loud as fuck and annoying as well, but they are also kind of cute.</p><p>Billy snorts. “Alright, wanna tell me why you keep tabs on those punks?”</p><p>“I’m… Kind of friends with one of the moms? Joyce Byers?" Tammy says, although it comes out as a question. "You must know her, she works at Melvald’s. Short, brunette…”</p><p>“Weirdly intimidating, cute?”</p><p>Tammy looks at Billy and finds him raising an eyebrow and flashing a very suggestive smile that makes her groan in despair. “Shut the fuck up,” she complains, smacking his arm.</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Billy’s careless tone contradicts the storm in his eyes. He calmly blows out a ring of smoke before handing the cigarette to Tammy. “Mommy issues, happens to the best of us.”</p><p>With the previous embarrassment suddenly gone, Tammy takes a drag and tries to make up her mind after her friend’s words. “Should I…. Should I ask you about your mother?”</p><p>She hands back the cigarette. Billy takes a few drags and stays quiet for a while, eyes focused on the road and making Tammy think that he’s ignoring her question. It surprises her when he actually talks after a minute or two. “She’s not around, let’s leave it at that.”</p><p>The hand that isn’t holding the cigarette is tightly shaped into a fist. Tammy nods. She’s learning when to let go when it comes to Billy. She doesn't have time to find another subject before Billy tells her to open the glove box, which makes a bunch of magazines fall on her.</p><p>"What the fuck!" she exclaims, finding herself with a lap full of Playboy magazines. Her cheeks blush as soon as she glances at the girls in sexy poses on the front pages and Billy cackles like a maniac.</p><p>"I have another dozen back home. They are useless, my dad's already half-convinced that I'm a fag," he explains, driving around a corner in such a hazardous way that most of the magazines slip from Tammy's lap before she has time to grab them. "I think you'll find them more... Interesting."</p><p>They enter Melvald's quietly arguing about Billy using the word 'fag' versus Tammy using the word 'queer' (which isn't the same, thank you very much. Tammy likes to think she's reclaiming the word for herself, while Billy is being self-deprecating and not in a good way) and with the magazines safely shoved inside Tammy's bag. Billy immediately fucks off to grab some food and probably to try to sneak out some cheap beer.</p><p>Tammy, however, chooses to stay close to the cash register because Joyce is there looking particularly exhausted and tiny while she sticks price tags onto random stuff.</p><p>"I've always been scared of that little weird price tag gun," the girl confesses, leaning against the counter. Joyce looks at her with tired eyes, raises an eyebrow and suddenly puts the gun in front of Tammy's face. The sudden movement makes Tammy flinch away but not before she gets a price tag stuck to her cheek. Joyce smiles a bit and Billy laughs at Tammy from the nearby milk aisle.</p><p>"Fuck off, Billy!" she exclaims. Rolling her eyes, Tammy turns back to Joyce. "Hey, I was wondering... How’s Will doing? We were at the arcade a while ago but I didn't see him or his friends."</p><p>Joyce immediately drops her shoulders and looks away. "It's... It's complicated. We're getting by."</p><p>That's basically what she told Tammy a few days ago, but she chooses not to mention it and instead points at Joyce's hands. "Did he get you into drawing as well?” she jokes.</p><p>Joyce’s hands have been obviously washed several times, but even so they retain some colorful crayon stains under the nails. Dark blue, mostly. Joyce grimaces but she's not even looking at her hands. “Kind of. Tammy, honey, can I ask you a personal question?” she blurts out.</p><p>Some of Tammy's worst nightmares start with that same sentence. She immediately tenses up, which Joyce can see if the way her eyes widen means anything, but she doesn't hurry her. Tammy breathes in. “... Sure."</p><p>“I… I really know this isn’t my business, but I’ve seen you around with him." Joyce discreetly points at the cereal aisle, where they can see Billy inspecting several boxes at once. "And I’ve heard people talking about him.”</p><p>It has always been painfully obvious that Joyce isn't like most people at Hawkins. She doesn't listen to gossiping nor judge others, not without a good reason, and that's why the tone of her voice puts Tammy on edge. If Joyce is asking it must be because she really considers it important. “What about him?” she asks, defensively.</p><p>“Is he being... Good, to you?”</p><p>Tammy feels like her mother has slapped her all over again. "Why are you asking that?" she barely manages to ask, making sure to lower her voice so Billy won't hear them.</p><p>"He seems like the kind of boy I used to date when I was your age. I'm merely asking if he really is that kind of boy. That's all I need to know," Joyce states, all caution thrown aside.</p><p>She's staring at Tammy with deep brown eyes that seem to read into her very soul and it intimidates the fuck out of her. Tammy has heard the rumors before and never doubted them, but now it feels kind of easier to imagine Joyce chasing her ex-husband out of the house with a shotgun.</p><p>The world slows down a bit around them. Joyce keeps babbling nonsense, talking about how she isn't trying to dictate who Tammy can and can't date, that she only wants to make sure that she's safe and doesn't make the same mistakes she did, and Tammy wants more than anything to scream. Because Joyce is there, working hours on end and barely making minimum wage, taking care of a sick kid and apparently keeping track of Tammy as well.</p><p>Because Joyce doesn't know what she's talking about, because she's painfully wrong about it all and accidentally implying some very ugly things about one of the most important people in Tammy's life.</p><p>Billy is kind of messed up but he isn't his fucking father.</p><p>"I'm going to be honest with you, Joyce, because I appreciate you," Tammy interrupts Joyce's aimless rant. She really does appreciate her... Isn't that an understating? Misplaced rage starts boiling inside her but Tammy ignores it. Instead, she carefully peels off the price tag from her cheek and sticks it on Joyce's crayon-stained hands. Then she grabs a lollipop from a nearby shelf, smacks a bunch of bucks on the counter and looks at Joyce dead in the eye. "He is the only kind of boy I would ever date. Keep the change."</p><p> </p><p>-x-</p><p> </p><p>After the weird as fuck, not really great day Tammy has had, her mother's slap for deliberately missing choir practice isn't exactly unexpected. Although the ring really does spice it up. Tammy holds a hand against the cut on her cheek, feels the blood and decides right then and there that she won't go back to choir practice ever again, no matter how many times her mother slaps her.</p><p>Margaret looks like death warmed over, to be honest. Pale and tired and with dark bags beneath her eyes, it's obvious that something is going on at Hawkin's Lab. And yet, instead of eating something (ha, as if!) or taking a nap, she apparently prefers to scream at Tammy. The girl just stands there and doesn't even bother trying to walk away or go to her room. She just tries to weather the storm as best as she can.</p><p>The sudden numbness of the world around her is puzzling but not at all unwelcome. Tammy stares at her mother without really hearing whatever bullshit is coming out of her mouth and lets her surroundings melt away into a quieter version of the world. A weird static overcomes everything and for a second Tammy wonders if she might be having a stroke or something. She decides that it must be her blood pressure dropping and she also decides that, as long as it shields her from her mother's words, she likes it.</p><p>The static starts to fade as suddenly as it appeared and Tammy almost mourns its presence, because once it's gone everything goes back to being a bit too intense for her liking. Tammy has zero trouble with Billy's incredibly loud music and instead her mother's voice is what really uneases her-and doesn't that say something?</p><p>After some more screaming Tammy just decides to drop her bag and get out of there. Her mother doesn't stop her.</p><p>Tammy expects the door looking behind her once she's out on the street and doesn't even worry about it, she can always climb through her window or even sleep at Steve's. She has other options. The realization hits her almost harder than her mother's slap.</p><p>A reasonable person would walk to Steve's, barely ten minutes away, but Tammy's troubled ass gets her all the way to Cherry Lane before she even remembers that she has no jacket and it's November in fucking Hawkins, Indiana. Doesn't matter. Neil Hargrove's mere presence in front of her as he opens the main door angers Tammy more than enough to warm her up.</p><p>“Good evening. I know it’s kind of late but could I see Billy? Please?" she pleads, trying to make her best good-girl-from-next-door impression. "Only for a little while.”</p><p>She isn't sure how much of Neil's strictness comes from truly being a strict parent and how much comes from trying to make Billy's life unbearable. However, after staring at her for a few seconds he nods. “Of course, come in," he says, stepping aside so she can enter. "What happened to you? Did you get into trouble?”</p><p>He's looking at her cheek and Tammy is too tired to come up with a lie. “My mom slapped me. She was wearing a ring.”</p><p>Neil's eyes on her disturb Tammy almost as much as her mother screaming at her. He has blue eyes like his son but where Billy's eyes make Tammy think of the ocean she has never seen, Neil's remind her of the dirty ice in the back of her freezer. How little alike they are shocks her, although she isn't sure where that feeling is coming from. It's not like she looks a lot like her mother either.</p><p>A hand forcing her to tilt her head makes Tammy jerk away, but Neil doesn't seem to care as he examines the shallow cut for a few seconds. “It will heal on its own, don’t worry," he announces, letting go of Tammy's face. "You won’t even have a scar.”</p><p>Tammy almost wants to throw up. He should know all about parents leaving scars on their kids, shouldn’t he?</p><p>“Billy is in his room," Neil tells her. Tammy tries to go there but he suddenly grabs her arm before she can get away. "May I add… Parents must be harsh, sometimes. God knows I have to be hard on my son. I’m happy to see that your mother doesn’t shy away from duty."</p><p>Neil smiles like he means it. He probably does, and that smile scares the shit out of Tammy.</p><p>"We need to teach you kids responsibility.”</p><p>He drops her arm and Tammy gets away in such a hurry that she almost crashes into Max. The little girl stares at her from the door of her own bedroom but Tammy doesn't stop to look back at her, blurting out a sloppy apology before marching into Billy's bedroom in such a hurry that she doesn't even knock first.</p><p>She finds him laying on his bed, arms folded under his head and listening to some random noisy tape that she doesn't recognize. The door opening so suddenly makes Billy flinch and let out a little yelp, which in turn makes Tammy flinch as well. Hell, what a mess they are.</p><p>It becomes obvious when Billy sees it, because his eyes grow comically big. “What the fuck happened to you?” he jumps back on his feet and strides closer to her, raising a hand as if he was going to touch Tammy's cheek. She watches him look at the already dried blood and then drop said hand as if he'd been burnt.</p><p>“My mom.” Her explanation couldn't be shorter or more concise if she tried. </p><p>“Jesus Christ… Stay here. Don’t fucking move.”</p><p>In his hurry to leave the room Billy almost trips over some weights that are abandoned on the floor. Weirdly enough, he seems to go into Max's bedroom. Tammy hears them talking as she looks around and notes that the bedroom is, indeed, far messier than the first time she visited. Does that mean that Billy fucking Hargrove decided to tidy up just for her? Damn, what a way to flatter a girl...</p><p>Tammy shrugs. At least it doesn't smell like teenage boy in there, although inhaling too much of Billy's cologne might be the price to pay in return. Does the guy bathe in it? Tammy can't bring herself to complain, though. At some point she has learned to associate Billy's cologne with safety just the same way that years ago her brain decided to associate Steve's fabric softener with love. It's fucking ridiculous, but her body reacts to the scent all the same and Tammy finally relaxes.</p><p>The tingling on her skin doesn't quite come as a surprise, although she wouldn't be able to explain why.</p><p>"How's your leg?" Billy asks as he strides back into the room carrying a small first aid kit. He closes the door, walks up to Tammy and basically manhandles her into sitting on his bed.</p><p>"Good."</p><p>At some point during the day Tammy has forgotten to keep pretending to limp around and she doesn't even remember when.</p><p>It doesn't seem like it matters, though, because Billy is more focused on her face. He pours far more disinfectant than necessary on a gauze and uses it to carefully clean away the cut. Tammy stays quiet during the whole process. One of her hands finds its way to Billy's sleeveless Quiet Riot t-shirt and she hangs onto it like a fucking baby. Almost expects him to shove her away, but he doesn't.</p><p>For a few seconds Tammy feels like she could fall asleep right then and there. Everything feels so calm and warm around her... The spell breaks, however, when Billy suddenly moves away and the movement forces her to let go of his t-shirt.</p><p>"What's wrong?" Tammy asks. He doesn't answer right away. Instead, he walks up to his boombox and turns it on. The radio starts to retransmit some local station that at the moment appears to be broadcasting some of Bruce Springsteen's hits. Billy grimaces when Dancing in the Dark starts playing, but turns it up and otherwise ignores it in favor of lighting up a cigarette. It gets on Tammy's nerves. "Billy?"</p><p>"Wanna tell me what is going on?" he quietly asks after a deep drag. Tammy now realizes that he's turned on the music so his family wouldn't hear... Wouldn't hear what, exactly?</p><p>"What do you mean?"</p><p>Unimpressed, Billy walks up to Tammy and blows out the smoke in her face. "I'm not stupid. After what happened this morning you shouldn't be able to walk all the way from Loch Nora to here. And whatever happened to your face? Isn't there anymore."</p><p>"What do you mean it's not fucking there?" Tammy complains. Of course the cut is there, she touched it, she felt the blood...</p><p>Billy suddenly forces her to stand back up and walks her until they are both in front of his mirror. Taking a drag from the cigarette that is still between his lips, he points at the reflection and raises an eyebrow. "Do you see anything?"</p><p>This can't fucking be happening. She touches the unblemished skin, rubs at it as if Billy hasn't done a good job at cleaning away the blood, as if she could somehow reveal the cut hiding underneath. But it's not there. The cut is not there. Not anymore.</p><p>"Do you see anything at all?" Billy insists, poking at her cheek and making her heart jump inside her chest. "Because I don't."</p><p>"This can't be happening," Tammy whispers. "This can't be real."</p><p>She hadn't wanted to think too much about whatever happened to her leg because she doesn't know what to make out of it, but this...</p><p>"It was there when I came here, your father saw it," Tammy insists. </p><p>In the reflection, Billy's careless shrug contradicts the sharpness of his eyes. "What do you want me to...? Hey, you alright? You are getting pale."</p><p>The mirror shows her just how quickly any trace of color is disappearing from her face, but Tammy doesn't pay attention to that because the fucking tingling it's back and it's nothing like the one she felt in the morning. Now it's spreading all over, growing in its intensity enough to both disturb and scare the fuck out of her. </p><p>"Wha- What is happening to me?" Tammy stammers. The tingling in her hands grows so strong that for a second it actually hurts, and when it goes away...</p><p>Her stomach does a backflip once Tammy sees her skin shifting in reverse. It's the best way she can explain it. Tiny little scars all over her hands (the kind anybody has after playing a bit too much on the street as a child) are getting more and more visible after each passing second. From pale to pink to reddish, some of them even start to bleed. Horrified, Tammy looks at her friend. "What is happening to me?"</p><p>Billy's stunned expression doesn't even come close to what she feels when Tammy realizes that... Whatever it's going on with her hands, it's spreading up her arms.</p><p>She exchanges a panicked look with Billy and immediately after they both start to get rid of her clothes as fast as they can. They would be totally fucked if Neil chose to enter the room in that exact moment; Tammy doesn't believe him the kind of parent that allows his son to mess around with a girl while the rest of the family is still in the house.</p><p>However, the more of Tammy's skin they uncover, the less they can stop. Tammy has already thrown the thin sweatshirt away and Billy is in such a hurry to help her that he almost rips her t-shirt. He drops the garment and steps back, utterly shocked when Tammy gets out of her skirt. She can't blame him, because her breath hitches when she looks at herself in his mirror.</p><p>The loss of her clothes has revealed pale skin but also overlapping bruises in a wide variety of colors, all over her like some kind of twisted watercolors. There's a barely healed cut on her ankle. Tammy's mouth falls wide open when she sees the thick surgical-looking scars that cover most of her upper body. Tracing them with a shaking finger, she realizes that the scars follow the approximate position of the most important organs. </p><p>The pink lines of the scars up her left thigh suddenly turn so pale that they almost disappear, before turning back pink and red. Blood starts flowing freely from them and a couple of drops land on the carpet.</p><p>Billy lets out a choked sound when almost the entirety of Tammy's right arm turns pink and bloody and Tammy starts to cry.</p><p>Not because of the sight of her body in the mirror, not because of Billy's shock, but because she recognizes too many of the marks and the scars and the wounds. She once had them, years ago. Multiple bruises from multiple childhood falls, that one time that she cut her ankle on a fence back in Derry, the scars on her tight from that one time she completely lost her nerves after Barb disappeared.</p><p>The road rash all over her right arm, from that one time Steve and Tommy tried to teach her to ride a bike and Tammy crashed in Cherry Lane.</p><p>"Tam?" Billy asks, not unlike the way he would talk to a scared animal. His voice is shaking. "What the fuck is that on your wrist?"</p><p>Tammy doesn't want to look at her wrist. She has already seen too much, doesn't want to see more, she can't handle it, she can't fucking breathe. On the radio, forgotten by them both, Bruce Springsteen keeps singing.</p><p>
  <em>Man, I ain't gettin' nowhere</em><br/>
<em>I'm just livin' in a dump like this</em><br/>
<em>There's somethin' happenin' somewhere</em><br/>
<em>Baby, I just know that there is</em>
</p><p>A rough hand grabs her left one. Maybe for the first time ever, Bily doesn't let go when it becomes obvious that Tammy is uncomfortable and instead forces her to face it and look. Tammy stares at the 009 that she doesn't remember getting tattooed and chokes out a little sob.</p><p>
  <em>There's a joke here somewhere and it's on me</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>so... that happened. were you expecting it? i've been dropping some hints hehe</p><p>did y'all notice billy and robin sitting like homosexuals? 👀 also,,, tammy is so fucking gay for robin that it makes everything funnier lol, i can already see robin's face in s3 when she realizes that tammy is v much not straight :)</p><p>i know that the whole queer discourse it's out there and i understand it if anybody feels uncomfortable about the term. however, tammy is only reflecting my own opinion about it (aka, you do you, you can't force any kind of 'umbrella term' on anybody but at the same time some people want to reclaim it for themselves, and that's fine).</p><p>i'm also a bit wary about giving tammy powers but in my mind it kind of makes sense, taking into account who she is and who she will become. besides... literally every other character except el (and maybe those who survive the mind flayer?) is a normal human, so i wanted to spice things up a bit :) the extent of her powers and her backstory will all be explained over a few chapters and i'll try to keep it as simple as possible, i feel like any other way of doing it would become plain info-dumping. so, please, be patient! i guarantee you that tammy is far more confused than you guys might be right now. </p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoJpFSEvp3A">this</a> is supposed to be a tiny part of tammy's cheer routine, just in case you guys didn't check it out while reading. i feel like i should add another tag, 'unrealistic descriptions of cheerleading' lol</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i don't really think the violent scenes in this chapter qualify as self-harming, but some of them are on purpose on tammy's part and she also has like two (2) not very healthy thoughts™ about it so, head's up, just in case.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>November in Hawkins isn't the best time of the year to walk around wearing only her underwear and Steve's old sweatshirt. She can barely feel her feet, she's shivering and her hair is still wet and dripping from swimming in Steve's pool earlier, but Tammy isn't thinking about any of this.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"What are you doing all alone?" she asks. "I thought you went home."</span>
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  <em>
    <span>"I should have gone home," Barb agrees. "I don't even know what I'm doing here."</span>
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</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Smiling, Tammy wraps the sweatshirt tighter around her before dropping down on the trampoline next to Barb. The whole thing shakes and threatens to throw them -and Tammy's smile only grows after seeing that Barb's first instinct is to grab her so she doesn't fall to the pool.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>(It doesn't fucking matter, she reminds herself. Barb is only a good person. Barb wouldn't... But still. She smiles).</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"You are having a bad night," Tammy states as a matter of fact. Blood spilling from Barb's hand distracts her and makes her click her tongue. "Poor thing. Does it hurt?"</span>
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</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"A bit. I'll survive."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Barb's sardonic expression, a half-smiling-half-troubled one, pisses Tammy off. " Barb, why are you even here?" she asks. "I don't mean the pool, but... You know." </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>She gestures at their dark surroundings with her hand and immediately blushes. Wow, so much for eloquence. Barb doesn't seem to mind. She only stares at the water, unaware of Tammy staring at her. The lights from Steve's house reflect on the water and on Barb's face and Tammy can't fucking look away to save her life.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Nancy's here."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The spell shatters like glass and Tammy rolls her eyes. Lately everything seems to go back to Nancy. It's the same with Steve and it's getting annoying, honestly. "I know, but still. You shouldn't be here listening to our bullshit."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"It's not bullshit."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The fierceness in Barb's voice surprises Tammy because... Well, she doesn't think she has ever heard Barb raise her voice. "Huh?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Apparently Tammy isn't able to fucking speak like a normal human being when in front of cute girls. Good to know.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"I mean, Carol is a bit of a bitch and Tommy and Steve are assholes..." Barb grimaces once her own words sink in. "Sorry, no offense, I know he's like your best friend or something..."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"None taken, he's an asshole." Tammy shrugs. It's the truth. She loves him, but he's kind of an asshole. It's alright, she's one as well.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"But you aren't..." Barb keeps rambling. "The stuff you talk about, it's not bullshit."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Her words sink deep in Tammy, who becomes serious even after all the beer she's drunk. "You don't know me."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"I don't need to know you. I feel like... Like I can see you."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Every single one of Barb's words feels like a punch to the guts. Tammy chooses to think it's only the fucking beer. "You can't say things like that," she says. Her words come out in a barely audible whisper.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Why not?" Barb asks earnestly. It's obvious that she doesn't understand it.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tammy would love to explain it to her, seriously. But she can't. She can't, because they are already sitting too close, because if Tammy were to turn her head their faces would become even closer and she can't wrap her mind about that without breaking down in the process. Because Barb might be as clueless about it as they come, but her crush on Nancy is painfully obvious to anyone who knows how to look.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tammy won't get in the middle of that. She loves herself a bit too much to break her own heart like that. But damn, it fucking hurts.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Pretending it doesn't, she just tilts her head and grins in the way she knows that makes her look like a stupid blonde. "It's getting late!" she chirps. "I'll... You know what? I think I'm going to leave as well. I live like five minutes away, do you think you could give me a ride?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Barb looks a bit confused at the sudden change of topic, but the idea of leaving seems to lighten up her face. "Yeah, sure."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"I'll be right back."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tammy stands up and goes into Steve's house to grab her stuff. Steve and Nancy are nowhere to be seen and she doesn't want to think too much about that. Tommy and Carol are heavily making out on the couch and Carol looks at her on the way out. Tammy knows those eyes. Those eyes will smile at her and invite her to stay, those eyes will shine a bit too much when Carol kisses her 'because Tommy likes it'.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tammy pretends she doesn't see any of it and gets out as fast as she can, struggling to balance all of her clothes and her shoes in her arms. "Alright, I'm ready. Barb?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Everything seems darker than a few minutes ago, although Tammy doesn't really notice it because she's trying to find Barb. She doesn't see the other girl in the pool, or anywhere in Steve's garden... Has she left without Tammy?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Barb?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Something swirls in the pool. Tammy drops everything in her hurry to run there, thinking that Barb might have fallen into the pool... The blood freezes in her veins as soon as she reaches the edge. It's almost too dark but Tammy can make out a silhouette at the bottom of the pool, something is staring back at her.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Barb!"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It's a mistake. Tammy realizes this in a fraction of a second, when she tries to get into the pool and is yanked into it as soon as her naked feet touch the water. It tries to drag her underwater as she desperately tries to grab onto the edge of the pool, the stairs, anything at all, please. She tries to scream for help but she's choking on chlorine water that suddenly turns into something else, something darker that tastes like metal.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tammy's shriek wrecks her vocal cords but she can't even feel the pain, too busy trying to rip her feet out of sharp, slimy claws. Trying not to drown in blood.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Take it."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There's a small hand in front of her and Tammy takes it without hesitation. It's so strong that it yanks her back out of the water and face-first into cold white tiles that don't belong anywhere in Steve's house.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Coughing out water and struggling to catch her breath, Tammy looks around and finds herself in a sterile-looking room. Everything is white. The floor, the walls, the ceilings, a table. The only color comes from what looks like lab equipment on the table, some toys scattered around... </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why did you bring us here?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The girl in front of Tammy is upsettingly serious for someone so tiny. She has long, dark blonde hair and dark eyes, and a cute little nose that is dripping blood.</span>
  </em>
  <span> "Why did you do it?" she asks again.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"I-I didn't do anything."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tammy's heart skips a beat when she realizes that the tiny girl in front of her is as tall as she is, which means that... Tammy stares at her own tiny, childish-looking hands, and shudders.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Focus,"</span>
  <em>
    <span> the girl commands. She takes Tammy's hand and practically drags her towards the door. For a second sheer panic runs through Tammy like a wave. She doesn't want to leave the room, the room means safe, outside will hurt them... She tries to resist the pulling but the other little girl is illogically strong and drags her along without hesitation or mercy.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>There's a small rainbow mural next outside the door, Tammy notices. It looks so out of place in that gloomy white corridor that it almost surprises her more than running through a different door and feeling their surroundings shifting around them again.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Where are we?" Tammy asks. She looks at herself (she's back to her sixteen-year-old body, thank God), and then she looks around themselves. They seem to be in some kind of cabin. It's a bit too small and a bit too messy, Tammy can see empty boxes of Eggos out of all things laying around the kitchen. The couch is also unmade, and what little she can see from a bedroom through a half-closed door is a bit of a disaster.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>And yet it feels a bit like...</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Home," </span>
  <em>
    <span>the girl answers, and Tammy doesn't doubt her word. The girl has grown up as well. Her dark blonde hair has turned into slicked-back dark hair, she's wearing far too much dark makeup for someone that young and her nose is still bleeding.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Tammy recognizes her in a second.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"It was you. That day, while I was running... I saw you. You turned everything upside-down."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The way the girl smiles tells Tammy that something in her words might have unsettled her. </span>
  </em>
  <span>"I'm coming back," </span>
  <em>
    <span>she says. </span>
  </em>
  <span>"Will you tell them?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Back...? Wait, who's them?”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>The girl smiles a bit and then everything disappears around Tammy, like smoke. She's somewhere dark and bleak and with no visible limits in any direction. She doesn't like it. The dark water swirling around her feet reminds her of Steve's pool. Her chest tightens, she can't breathe. She has started crying without realizing. "Hello? He-"</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-x-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"-llo!?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hi there, Sleeping Beauty... Oh shit, your nose is bleeding. Wait, take these."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy blinks in surprise when someone shoves a bunch of tissues under her nose. She's thankful, though, because her nose is bleeding so heavily that she can taste the blood in the back of her mouth. She tries to sit up and knows where she is as soon as she sees the walls -who else would have those walls?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Steve?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hi." Steve grins far too happily for Tammy to be able to endure. She looks away for a second to try and put herself together. Absent-mindedly, she notices two things. One, it must be almost noon, and two, there's a bunch of blankets on the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Where did you sleep?" she asks. Her voice is almost hoarse, as if she had been screaming in her sleep, and her throat and feet hurt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve shrugs. "On the floor."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You needed the bed."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jesus fucking Christ, Steve will be the death of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We aren't kids anymore, I'm pretty sure we can share a bed and you look like death warmed over," she snaps. "Get over here."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Wow, you aren't a morning person," Steve complains as if he didn't know that already. However, he does as instructed with little fussing and Tammy takes advantage of him by resting her head on his chest as soon as possible. She sighs and curls up against her friend, relishing in his warmth and the scent of his clothes, which smell like his usual fancy brand of fabric softener. Tammy is pretty sure he's the only teen who would care about such a thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She almost expects her weird dream (nightmare?) to vanish as the minutes go by. Usually she doesn't quite remember her dreams, only retaining some random flashes and sensations. This one, however, must be different. Every single detail is crystal clear in her mind. She can still see the lights and the swirling water reflected on Barb's face. She can still see the rainbow mural.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can still smell the chlorine of the pool. Shuddering, Tammy curls up closer to Steve and buries her nose against his sweater until fabric softener is the only thing she can smell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you cold?" Steve asks, rubbing her arms in a surprisingly motherly way. He seems to worry a bit when Tammy doesn't bat his hands away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"... Are you okay?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"I had a nightmare." Tammy doesn't want to elaborate and Steve doesn't push it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Well, yeah, no wonder," he snorts, trying to lighten the situation. "You drank a lot last night, alcohol sometimes does that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy frowns. "I did?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yup. Emptied my dad's favorite bottle."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What the fuck? Usually Tammy has way more control than that. "I am so sorry..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's okay, I drank too. It felt like you needed it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Did I say anything last night?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Lots of stuff, but you were barely making any sense. You kept rambling about getting a tattoo?" it sounds like a question. Steve keeps rambling without noticing that Tammy has gone pale and stiff in his arms. "I didn't know you were into those things... I mean, I totally support you, we could go to like Indianapolis or something and..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As discreetly as humanly possible, Tammy shifts to check her wrist. The 009 stares back in bold black lines and the previous night comes back in flashes. Her mother slapping her, going to Billy's, freaking out about her healed cheek, further freaking out about... Whatever is happening to her. Freaking out a bit more when all the bruises and scars slowly faded away once Tammy managed to calm down. Neil being an absolute bastard and forbidding Billy from leaving the house, Tammy walking back to hers before deciding that, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck it</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and going to Steve's instead...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then the fucking nightmare about Barb and the little girl. Tammy feels her eyes tearing up. Fuck, what a shitty night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve keeps rambling and doesn’t realize that Tammy is very close to losing her shit about the 009 tattoo, the nightmare and everything else going on, because honestly at this point it's becoming too fucking much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes sure to hide the tattoo away from her friend and desperately starts counting the squares on Steve's walls, trying to figure out how many big ones there are and how many little ones fit into them. A few minutes later Tammy isn't on the verge of a panic attack but is instead re-evaluating hers and Steve's choices, which isn't that much better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It all boils down to her clothes, which she hates because her mother chose them, and the paper on Steve's walls, which he doesn't cover with posters because his parents chose it. Two sides of the same coin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jesus Christ, they must be a shrink's wet dream.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-x-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They cuddle for a bit longer until Steve's stomach starts roaring. Tammy is hungry as well, so they end up eating something that Steve's mother might have tried to call brunch and that Tammy calls 'let's throw the greasiest post-hangover foods all together into a pan and call it a day'.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It tastes amazing, however, and that is only thanks to Steve. He is a fairly competent cook although that might have happened out of boredom and his desire to stop his friends' moms from bringing food over on a daily basis.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Either way, Tammy won't complain. She eats in silence, sitting on top of the counter and swinging her feet while she watches Steve clean up the kitchen. Everything feels weirdly quiet, bright yet dim. A bit like those mornings when one wakes up a bit too early and the sun is still coming out and it's starting to shine but not really and everything still feels cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bit like the white room. No, that doesn't feel right... She remembers the rainbow mural and smiles a bit. The rainbow room. Yeah, that fits better.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What kind of flowers do girls like?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve's question yanks her back to the real world. What the fuck?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sorry?" Tammy asks around a mouthful of food.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sighing, Steve turns around. He's staring at Tammy way too seriously for someone that still has a bit of foam on his hair from doing the dishes. "What kind of flowers do girls like?" he repeats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I heard you the first time," Tammy complains. "Man, I don't know. I don't think all girls like the same flowers. Hell, I don't think all girls like flowers."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You like flowers," he deadpans, pointing out the obvious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy rolls her eyes. "Yeah, well, sadly for you I'm not an accurate representation of the average American girl. Yes, I like flowers, and it has nothing to do with your question. Why don't you tell me the truth?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve blushes a bit and starts picking at a fingernail. He mumbles something too softly for Tammy to hear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sorry, I didn't get that."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I said that I want to get some flowers for Nancy," Steve repeats, annoyed. "Can you help me? Do you know what her favorite flowers are?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Barb once told Tammy that Nancy's favorite flowers are pansies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I have no idea what kind of flowers Nancy likes," Tammy says. "Why do you want to get her flowers anyway? She treated you like shit at Tina's Halloween party. I thought you guys were broken up."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We... Kind of are? I don't know, Tam, it's complicated." Steve frowns and starts biting a nail. "I kind of wanted to apologize..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What for, for fuck's sake?" Tammy interrupts him. "She treated you like shit, made you leave almost in tears, and these last few days she's been ditching school and Byers is casually MIA as well. Come on, man.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It almost physically hurts Tammy to see him like this. King Steve was an asshole and a bitch and a borderline bully, but at least he had some pride. The Steve in front of her looks like a kicked puppy blindly chasing after somebody that doesn't deserve him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You shouldn't have to..." Tammy isn't able to put into words how she feels without further hurting Steve, so she sticks to the classics. "Man, just fuck her."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Don't say that," Steve immediately snaps. He looks pissed off and it makes Tammy smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fuck. Her," Tammy repeats, feeling some kind of sick pleasure when she pronounces each syllable loud and clear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Shut up!" Steve shouts. He's gripping the edge of the sink so tightly that his knuckles have turned white. "You don't understand it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course I don't! No, I don't fucking understand it!" Tammy screams. She has to physically stop herself from walking up to Steve and shaking him until he starts to reason. "She was grieving after Barb died, well, she can join the fucking club! But you had nothing to do with it. She shouldn't be punishing you over something that was out of your control!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How do you know that?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve's words are so quiet and sad that Tammy immediately stops screaming as soon as she hears them. Frowning, she jumps down from the counter and walks closer to her friend. "Know what?" she asks again. "Steve?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That I had nothing to do with it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy can't help it. She actually starts laughing. "Because you are a good person, you idiot!" she exclaims. Her laugh is becoming disturbingly hysterical and Steve looks freaked out, so she tries to tone it down. "And I know that you've left all the 'King Steve' thing behind, but I would put my hand on fire that even King Steve would have done anything in his power to help a friend. So, please, stop with this bullshit. It's only going to keep hurting you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve huffs, looking away from her. "You are not the one to talk about getting hurt."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What does it mean?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He will hurt you!" Steve exclaims. "What the fuck were you thinking when you started dating Hargrove out of all people?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What the fuck? </span>
  <em>
    <span>This </span>
  </em>
  <span>is when Steve chooses to talk about Tammy's boyfriend?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He won't hurt me!" she shouts back. "You don't even know him!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve lets out a really mean cackle. "Geez, I wonder why... Seriously, though, Tammy. You don't get to criticize me dating Nancy when you are dating such an asshole."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You wouldn't understand it." Tammy can already feel her lower lip trembling. Barely five minutes ago they were eating and joking around, how has it come to this? "You wouldn't," she repeats, because it's the truth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fucking try me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve stares at her with a raised eyebrow, giving Tammy plenty of time to answer. And yet, she can't. What is she supposed to do? Tell him about Neil and Margaret, who are that bit worse than your usual 'absent paternal figure' flavor? Out Billy? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Out herself</span>
  </em>
  <span>? No fucking way. She can't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she stares back at Steve, says nothing, and tries not to flinch when his face turns expressionless like a statue's and her own stomach drops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'll be in the living-room," Steve announces, staring at her with eyes as cold as his voice. "Make yourself at home."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Steve. Steve, come on, please…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy's begs aren't enough to keep him in the kitchen and she is forced to see him leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shit, isn't that a good metaphor?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-x-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Steve is blasting one of his mother's records in the living-room. Elton John sings </span>
  <em>
    <span>I'm a bitch, I'm a bitch, oh the bitch is back</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Tammy absent-mindedly tries to find out who in their situation is supposed to be the bitch. She is, probably, if she is being honest. Doesn't really find it in herself to care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She quickly goes upstairs to Steve's room and changes from some old Hawkins High basketball t-shirt into her clothes from the day before. There's blood on her skirt and that reminds her of the events of the previous night, of the scars on her thigh opening back and bleeding all over Billy's carpet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Frowning, Tammy walks to Steve's mirror and looks at her reflection. The scars are there on her thigh, pinkish and completely normal looking. Just your average-year-old scar. The same happens with the old scar on her ankle. The cut on her cheek is still gone without so much as a scar left behind, and the tattoo is still on her left wrist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Biting her lower lip, Tammy traces the numbers. 009. What the fuck does that mean? Is there a 008, a 010, a 011? Why doesn't she remember getting it? She has done plenty of stupid shit while drunk, but Tammy likes to think that she would remember getting a tattoo. If anything else, other people would have noticed the numbers way before...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So, alright. To sum up. Her body is doing weird shit such as healing a fucking broken leg and, apparently, reversing earlier injuries. Tammy also remembers seeing scars on her upper body that she can no longer see. No matter how close she stands to the mirror or how she twists her body to change the angle of the light, it doesn't matter. Those shocking, surgical-looking scars are long gone. The scars Tammy has been aware of since getting them are back to normal. Somehow, she has a weird tattoo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fuck, is she turning into an X-Men?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's a bit too much to handle. Tammy decides to go back to Billy's or at least to drag him outside the house and somewhere else. First of all, because she isn't particularly thrilled about staying at Steve's house after their little chat but she doesn't really want to stay at Billy's either. Secondly... Well, Billy got a first-row seat to the show of the previous night and didn't freak out too much, so Tammy guesses it's a safe bet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She just wants to talk to someone and hopefully feel a little bit less crazy. Is that too much to ask for?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A phone rings in the distance while she finishes getting dressed, but Tammy doesn't pay it much attention. She folds Steve's t-shirt on the bed and frowns, utterly bewildered for a hot second, when she sees a black printed <a href="https://rockntipo.com/235835-large_default_2x/iron-maiden-piece-of-mind-sudadera-con-capucha-y-bolsillo.jpg">Iron Maiden hoodie</a> that looks terribly out of place on Steve's floor. She realizes she must have taken it from Billy's the night before and quickly picks it up. When she puts it on (making sure that the sleeves cover the tattoo) she notices something in the pocket. She giggles after finding a tape carefully labeled </span>
  <em>
    <span>'billy's 70s shit'</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Tam!" Steve calls from the distance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bit warily, Tammy outs the tape back into the pocket and shouts back. "What?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Your mother phoned! She's coming to pick you up in ten."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy is out of the bedroom and sprinting down the stairs almost before she can realize it. "What?" she complains once she gets to the living-room, skidding on the shiny floor and out of breath. "Why would you tell her I was here?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Wasn't I supposed to...?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's her own fault, honestly. Tammy hasn't told him... "No!" she shouts nevertheless. "We had like, this epic argument yesterday. Fuck my entire life, I can't believe I forgot to tell you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's started pacing around and waving her arms like a maniac. It seems to unsettle Steve enough to actually turn off the music and walk up to her from the phone. "That's why you were drinking? he asks. There's no trace of their earlier argument in his face and it should reassure Tammy, but it doesn't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah," she says, because she can't exactly explain the truth, can she?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Shit, it must have been bad... Listen, I'm sorry, I..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's okay, you didn't know, don't worry," Tammy quickly interrupts him. One babbling, freaked-out teen is more than enough already. "I'll... I'll deal with it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's easier said than done.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Waiting for her mother to arrive feels like waiting for a death sentence. It's almost funny, that after everything that's happened, after the 009 tattoo and all the weird stuff related to them, Tammy's mother is what makes her nervous the most. Steve must be able to sense it because he doesn't say anything but looks pretty worried nevertheless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you sure of this?" he asks. They are huddled behind the curtains of the kitchen, watching Margaret's car stop in front of the house. "She hasn't seen you yet. We can come up with an excuse..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Steve. Let me handle this," Tammy pleads.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Steve lets her go and doesn't look happy about it at all. He might be getting the feeling that Tammy's mother is somehow a bit worse than your usual absent parent, but he surely isn't able to put his finger on it. Right? Dear God, Tammy hopes he doesn't. Otherwise, she wouldn't be able to look at him in the face ever again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hello, mama," Tammy mumbles as she gets into the car.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margaret doesn't seem to acknowledge her presence for a few seconds. Then... "Seatbelt."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy obeys and the car drives away from Steve's house as soon as she does it. "Mama?" she asks after a few seconds of silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Why are you doing this to me?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margaret's voice has the effect of a lasso on Tammy. "I-I'm not doing anything," she blurts out. What the hell is she supposed to be doing? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yes, you are," her mother insists. The sweetness of her voice contradicts the murderous expression on her face. "You lie to me, you miss choir practice on purpose... I told you, these days are being really hard on me, work is getting really stressful, I need you to behave. And yet, you act out like this."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It must be true that her mother's job is getting stressful. Margaret always looks pretty, it's kind of uncanny, really... But now Tammy looks at her and she can see the mask cracking. Her makeup looks sloppy, her hair is up in the messiest bun ever known to mankind, there are dark bags under her eyes and her hands are trembling on the steering wheel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, it's not like Tammy is keeping track of all of these tiny details and plotting to make her mother's life more difficult. Believe it or not, Tammy's existence doesn't revolve around pissing her off. "It's not about..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Have I given you any reason to act like this?" Margaret interrupts her. This time her voice has turned so harsh and nasty that it almost chokes any air out of Tammy's lungs, effectively keeping her quiet. The impotence makes her tear up. It’s ridiculous. She feels like a little kid, unable to stand up for herself. Margaret throws her a sideways glance and smiles a bit. "I didn't think so. When will you stop being such an ungrateful brat? Grow up."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has fully turned to Tammy for the first time since the girl entered the car. Tammy half expects more sharp remarks about how terrible a daughter she is, maybe even a slap... Margaret's look of utter shock and disbelief confuses her, even more when Margaret stops the car so abruptly that Tammy almost crashes head-first into the glove box. "Mama?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother reaches out to grab her face and Tammy instinctively freaks out and jerks away, but it's useless because her back hits the window and leaves her defenseless against her mother. Margaret doesn't even seem to register Tammy's panic, far too focused on whatever she's seeing... "Your cheek."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy can almost feel her heart skipping a beat. Her cheek. The one that has no traces of the cut caused by her mother's ring when she slapped her. Margaret has seen the cut, she's a doctor and must be able to tell that there is no logical way to explain why Tammy's cheek is fully healed... </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuckfuckfuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The world slows down a bit around them when Margaret suddenly starts to chuckle. Tammy freezes. That laugh sounds anything but happy, it rather feels like her mother has just realized something and is trying and failing to keep it together. Laughing like a maniac is a good outburst, as Tammy is concerned, and she doesn't dare to react. Margaret lets go of her face so rudely that she might have as well slapped Tammy and the teen desperately tries to stay as quiet and still as possible. She doesn't want to find out what will happen if she doesn't. </span>
</p><p><span>H</span>er mother starts driving again, as suddenly as she stopped the car in the first place... The confusion comes once she makes a U-turn so harsh that it rivals any of Billy's.</p><p>
  <span>"I thought we were going home," Tammy mumbles as she grabs onto the seat for dear life. She doesn't trust anything her mother might try to pull off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No. We're going to Hawkins Lab."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bit more reassured that her mother doesn't seem on the verge of freaking out at her, Tammy swallows down and keeps asking. "Why? Did you leave something there?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Actually," Margaret smiles in such a way that it makes Tammy shudder. "I'm giving it back." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-x-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>All things considered, Hawkins Lab looks like a pretty normal government building. At least from the outside. Nothing really catches Tammy's attention as she follows her mother through the controls. Alright, there are guys with weapons, but... Government building, nothing else to see. Right?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she gets her picture taken and is given a visitor's pass. And her mother pulls her along into the building, and they start walking through the corridors and Tammy can feel what little is left of her confidence melting away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because she knows these corridors. She knows the white tiles on the floor, she knows those doors. Tammy has been here before, but nobody would ever believe her if she told them she has seen the inside of Hawkins Lab in a dream.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Barb disappearing from the pool happened exactly as it did in the dream, minus some kind of monster trying to drag Tammy underwater. If that was real, and now the corridors of Hawkins Lab are also real... Does it mean that the little girl is real as well?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy is so stunned by everything that she can barely react when her mother takes her inside a little office and makes her sit down behind the desk. The only thing that shocks her back into the real world is one of the walls of the office, which is made out of crystal. There is a huge curtain covering it but it's not drawn completely, and Tammy can see that in the next room...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I HAVE been bringing him in, and what have you done? Nothing. NOTHING!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy stares, stunned, at a familiar head of brownish hair. What the hell is Joyce Byers doing at Hawkins Lab? "What is she doing here?" Tammy asks her mother.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margaret doesn't answer. Instead, she puts on her white coat, fixes her hair as much as she can in three seconds, and grabs a bunch of documents from the desk before facing to talk to Tammy. "This is my office. I want you to stay here and be quiet, alright? Nobody will bother you here. Don't do anything funny."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Like what?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I won't be giving you any ideas." Margaret deadpans. "Those guys outside? They are trained to shoot first and ask questions later. I didn't raise an idiot, so don't act like it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And with that, she leaves the office and closes the door behind her. Tammy manages to stay quiet for all of five seconds before something bursts inside her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What the fuck!?" she exclaims. Immediately after she covers her mouth with her hands. If she can hear the people in the other room, surely they must be able to hear her as well...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But her little outburst seems to go unnoticed. Thanks to Joyce, mainly, because now she's screaming at someone and tearing them apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What? Stay CALM? TRUST YOU?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A short silence, some calm remarks that are too quiet for the girl to hear, and then...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"FUCK YOU, Margaret!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy smiles a bit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Listening to Joyce screaming is pretty entertaining. However, Tammy can't help but look around at the office. It's a pretty normal-looking one. Plain walls made of cheap fake wood -except for the glass wall that the room apparently shares with some kind of adjacent meeting room, if the number of voices on the other side of the glass means anything. Normal desk, normal chairs, normal electric coffee pot...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only thing that truly stands out is the enormous bookshelf that covers the entirety of the wall opposite the glass one. It's full of medical books, little plastic models of different body organs and enough office binders to bore someone to death.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy doesn't dare to stand up from the desk chair because her mother might be back in any moment, there are too many people in the meeting room for Tammy to know when one of them might walk out. But she can see most of the binders without getting any closer. All of them are grey and labeled with big white stickers with names printed on them. Vietnam '61-'71, MKU '52-'60, MKU '60-'71...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What is WRONG with MY BOY?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joyce screams at the same time that the world suddenly stops around Tammy when she pays attention to a binder. She has almost overlooked it because of how thin it is. It's more like a folder, really, labeled with a little white sticker and in her mother's handwriting. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>#001 to #011.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trembling, Tammy rolls up the sleeve of the hoodie to check that it's still there. The 009 tattoo stares back at her as if saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>"What else did you expect?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The door opens so abruptly that it hits the wall and makes Tammy yelp. She rolls down the sleeve and thankfully her mother doesn't seem to notice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Come with me, I want to show you something," she announces. Tammy quickly stands up and follows her out of the office.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margaret guides them through the maze of corridors and to an elevator that goes down for way longer than Tammy expected it to go in the first place. It makes her realize how badly she's misjudged the whole situation. Everything, from the lab itself to... Whatever is going on, is so much bigger than she originally thought.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They get to some kind of military-looking locker room and Margaret makes her put on a white coverall suit, like the ones that appear in the movies. It has a clear mask so Tammy can see around her, and what looks like some kind of air purifying device attached to the back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They aren't alone in the locker room and Tammy is shocked when she recognizes the two men. One of them is Dr. Owens, her mother's boss whom she has met once or twice, while the other one is...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chief Hopper? What is he doing here? The huge man stares back at her and must be thinking the same, because he turns to Owens. "What's the kid doing here?" he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm sixteen," Tammy complains about two seconds before realizing that </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>definitely makes her seem like a kid. Chief Hopper doesn't seem very impressed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Owens doesn't answer immediately and instead looks at Tammy's mother, waiting for her to explain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"She's involved in this," Margaret says while she checks her suit for any leaks. "I want to show It to her. Come on."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither Owens nor Chief Hopper seems very happy about Tammy's presence but neither of them contradicts Margaret. If anything, Owens is looking at Tammy in awe, which creeps her out almost more than the unstable-looking hanging platform that seems to go down to the Earth's core itself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Is this safe?" she asks, without meaning to, as they descend into the darkness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We haven't lost any men </span>
  <em>
    <span>this </span>
  </em>
  <span>way." Owens' answer is almost less comforting than Chief Hopper's sharp cackle. Margaret hushes them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The deeper they go, the less light there is until it finally disappears almost entirely. For a second everything around the platform is pitch black, they are floating in the darkness... But then a soft red fulgor starts to glow beneath them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"All living organisms develop defense mechanisms against attack." Owens starts talking so suddenly that, in a near-complete dark, his voice startles Tammy. "They adapt. They find some way to survive."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Shaken to her core, Tammy stares in amazement at the crack of the earth wall that starts to appear in front of them. It's almost too big for her to be able to watch it from top to bottom, it goes on and on and on, almost bigger than she can comprehend. It's glowing red and for a second Tammy fears that it might explode like some kind of volcano, before she remembers that there's most definitely no volcano beneath Hawkins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Besides, it's weird. The crack doesn't even look like earth per-se and the closest thing Tammy can compare it to is a gigantic spiderweb. Except that spiderwebs don't glow red, or shift in front of their very eyes, or hum back when Owens speaks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Raising an eyebrow, Tammy whistles <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JsaNjEMdA4">a melody</a> from some weird movie she watched a few weeks ago -this is, by the way, pretty much the extent of her musical abilities. The sound comes out a bit sharper and louder than she intended it to and effectively makes the adults around her go quiet. For a second nothing at all happens. Tammy deflates a bit...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then something starts whistling back. The sound comes from the depths of the crack in front of them and it's nothing like Tammy's whistle. This is a distorted, deep, guttural whistle that gets louder and louder with every passing second. It somehow goes right through them, mercilessly, leaving behind cold and distress and making Tammy feel as if something was traveling alongside the sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It stops as abruptly as it started in the first place. Tammy stares at the red crack and opens her mouth in surprise when the red glow seems to blink back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Twisted Nerve?" Owens asks her, breaking the now overwhelming silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy nods. "Yup."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"... Interesting. I hope our people back up in the lab recorded it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nobody mentions neither whistle and the platform keeps descending. They go past the red, pulsating fulgor until they unexpectedly hit the bottom of the well so hard that Tammy stumbles. Owens invites them with a gesture to get off the platform and Tammy clenches her teeth together as her feet touch the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It isn't right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The feeling comes out of nowhere and hits her like a speeding truck, but Tammy can't help it. Everything seems to be screaming at her that It isn't right. She shouldn't be there. Trying to shake off the weird feeling, she follows the little group through the mess of equipment and flashlights and men that occupy the dark bottom of the well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For some reason it feels like there are far more people down there, more bodies than Tammy can actually see, and it unsettles her. She chooses to think that there are more people in the tunnels she can see spreading from the bottom of the well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Are those... Vines, coming out from the tunnels? They seem to be moving, but there's no wind at all down there. Tammy chooses to actively ignore this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The men around them are focusing on... Whatever they are doing and don't seem surprised about all the previous whistling, which makes Tammy wonder what kind of fucked up shit they have witnessed. Owens and Tammy's mother seem just as unfazed by everything going on around them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, Chief Hopper seems to be freaking out a bit. "Oh, my God," Tammy hears him saying. That's probably the most emotion the man has shown in front of her since she moved to Hawkins four years ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's pretty impressive, isn't it?" Owens asks. As if they were in front of some kind of middle school science fair and not a maze of underground tunnels that spread from under some weird, enormous crack of the earth that is also glowing red. "It's been spreading, growing beneath us like some cancer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That is growing beneath Hawkins?" Tammy asks, feeling her voice get higher after each word. "What is it? The red glow, I mean."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That, young lady, is a rip in reality. A gate that leads to a parallel dimension, to put it simply."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy blinks. "For real?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A few of the men around them chuckle when they hear the question. Behind the transparent mask, Owens is smiling in that way adults smile when they encounter a particularly dense kid. "Yes, for real."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Alright, so now Tammy is dealing with whatever is going on with herself and that tattoo, and there is also some kind of parallel dimension spreading beneath Hawkins. Okay. She can- She can deal with this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Holy fuck," she breathes out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Language," her mother immediately chastises. "You know, I was only a bit younger than you are right now when I first saw It."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margaret says 'it' in a weird way. As if it was supposed to be 'It', capital I. She's staring at the red glow of the gate above them with empty eyes. One would think it was Jesus Christ or Buda or someone in front of them, and not some creepy glowing crack deep in the earth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Intrigued, Tammy ignores Chief Hopper asking Owens about burning something and follows her mother's eyes. The gate is quite high above them, but not enough that she can't look at it properly. It's still shifting, both the soft red glow and... Whatever is behind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy shudders when she realizes that nobody has told her whether there's something behind the gate. She just... She just knows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can feel it, behind the spider web-looking surface. A colossal something is watching them from behind the gate (it fucking whistled back at her! What the fuck!!) and a huge multitude of smaller somethings are there as well, a hive as chaotic as boiling water and on the verge of spilling out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy can feel their limbs rubbing against each other, their weird faces opening and closing, bodies moving in ways no living being should be able to move.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes her guts twist around themselves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't want to stay here any longer," she blurts out. Tammy starts walking backward as fast as possible and as further away from the gate as the people around her will let her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can feel Him laughing. Or, well, not laughing. It doesn't feel like a human laugh at all, but it's the closest thing she can compare it to and it terrifies the fuck out of Tammy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone grabs her and Tammy yelps. It's her mother, she realizes after a second. Somehow that knowledge doesn't exactly calm her down. It might have something to do with the way Margaret grabs her arms and forcibly pulls her closer back to the gate.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Can you see It?" she's asking. She sounds completely out of it, doesn't even seem to be aware of how much Tammy is struggling to both get away from the gate and away from her. "You must look carefully. Otherwise, It will blind you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy isn't sure about an It. However, a</span>
  <em>
    <span> Him</span>
  </em>
  <span>? A </span>
  <em>
    <span>them</span>
  </em>
  <span>? A whole different story. He feels a bit too big to get through the gate, although Tammy has the feeling that it won't last for much longer. Everybody would have noticed such a gigantic crack, it must have grown little by little, overtime... It will keep growing. He will get through, maybe not right now, but eventually.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They, however, are small enough to fit through the gate right then and there. Tammy can feel them getting closer by the minute and doesn't want to be down the fucking well when they arrive.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I want to leave," she begs, squirming and trying to get rid of her mother's iron grip. "Mama, please, let me go back, let me go..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Come on, let's get back." Chief Hopper's voice booms over everybody in a teen feet radio and seems to surprise Margaret enough for her to let go of Tammy. The woman throws a nasty glance in his direction and Hopper just shrugs. "I've been barfing my guts out for the last few hours and I feel it coming once again, do you want a rerun inside this suit?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn't be more obvious if he tried, but Tammy feels really grateful for his little outburst.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Thank you," she tells him as she gets out from behind the hospital curtain, back in the locker room ten minutes later. Her mother and Owens are a little away from them, talking in whispers, so Tammy doesn't bother to lower her voice too much. "For earlier."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Chief Hopper is sitting down on a bench and rubbing his temples. He hadn't been lying earlier, not completely, because he has a bucket in front of him and Tammy has heard him retching for the last several minutes. The poor man looks like death warmed over and would be in his right to ignore some random teenage girl he doesn't even know, but he chooses to make an effort and look up from the bucket. "No problem, kid... Shit."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His eyes start threatening to pop out of his skull and for a second Tammy fears he might be having a stroke or something. However, it becomes obvious what is going on once she follows his gaze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They have been given greenish medical scrubs but Tammy is cold, so she has put Billy's hoodie on top of them... And the left sleeve of the hoodie has gotten stuck just under her elbow. The 009 tattoo is in full display and Chief Hopper seems to be freaking out quite a lot about it. Tammy hurries to roll down the sleeve.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-x-</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy's suspicions about Joyce are pretty much confirmed once they are led to some fancy hospital room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joyce's kid, Will, is lying on the bed and looking pretty roughed up, all pale and sweaty and looking smaller than he actually is. He stares at Tammy and tilts his head a bit, surprised, almost like a dog. Tammy isn't quite paying attention because she's too busy staring at the other boy in the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What are you doing here?" both ask at the same time, and then: "I asked first."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mike Wheeler sticks his tongue out at Tammy. Joyce's boyfriend, who is sitting back at the corner and watching the interaction, coughs in a pretty unconvincing way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Hopper looks at Will, as if to check that the boy is still there, and then promptly makes a beeline to Joyce. They talk in whispers for a second, Hopper points at his own wrist and then Joyce looks at Tammy so abruptly that the girl can almost feel her neck straining...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, wait a fucking minute. Tammy tries to ignore the tingling inside her and focuses on watching Joyce rubbing at her neck. The girl frowns when she can feel the muscles struggling beneath Joyce's skin. Jesus Christ, that woman is carrying too much tension around, those are </span>
  <em>
    <span>a lot</span>
  </em>
  <span> of muscle contractions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Any concerns about Joyce -and presumably Hopper- knowing more than they let on, or Tammy randomly feeling other people's body parts, are quickly swept aside once Margaret and Owens stride back into the room. They are dragging along what looks like a weird version of your average reptilian tank, but instead of a turtle or a snake inside it, there is...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What the fuck?" Tammy mumbles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Language," her mother immediately says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy glares at her. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Bite me</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She really hopes her mother doesn't come any closer because after the little incident back at the gate she doesn't know what would happen. Tammy watches her mother getting a bit red in the face and her eyes growing incredibly wide when she realizes for the first time that her daughter is wearing a black hoodie with a zombie-looking skull chained up to a wall -in any other moment she would find it terribly funny.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The teen is, however, more interested in whatever is inside the tank. If Tammy hadn't been at the bottom of that weird well, if she hadn't seen the moving vines crawling out of the tunnels, she might have thought that the weird squirming little thing in front of them might be an octopus' leg or something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knows better, though, and stares at the little vine in mistrust.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Owens and Tammy's mother proceed to ask Will a bunch of questions. At first everything seems to be as normal as possible in their circumstances. Will knows his own name and is able to identify both her mother and Mike Wheeler, who apparently is his best friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, his words don't sound very convincing when he tells them that Margaret and Owens are 'doctors'. Tammy gets the impression that the boy must have been seeing them for too long to not be able to identify them. He isn't able to identify Joyce's boyfriend either -Tammy almost feels for poor Bob.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Let me try something else, just in case," Owens says, and then surprises Tammy by pointing at her. "Do you know her?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy doesn't expect Will to know her. Hawkins is small but, even so, they must have crossed paths like twice or three times at the very most.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>However, little Will shrugs. "She's a cheerleader. She goes a lot to Melvald's."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everybody in the room stares at Tammy and she stares back at them "What?" she says defensively, pretending that she isn't blushing to the tips of her ears. "I like doing the groceries, sue me."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Any blushing quickly disappears once she notices her mother's eyes on her, as if Margaret knew the true reason why Tammy is always willing to take care of the groceries.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Will doesn't seem to recognize Hopper either. Both him and Bob stare at Tammy and look a bit offended about it. Even in their circumstances Joyce must find it kind of funny, somehow, because she's smiling the tiniest bit. Tammy stares back at the two men and smiles.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Will's words suddenly yank her back to the real world. He's talking about how he was hurt by the soldiers, about how... "They shouldn't have done that," the boy insists. Every single one of his words feels as if it should be set in stone. "It upset Him."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The way he pronounces Him, capital H, makes Tammy's skin crawl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Owens then shows Will a drawing, asking the kid if that is Him, and Tammy's breath hitches because she recognizes the drawing. She saw it days ago when she went for a run and went by Joyce's house just because she felt like it, it was laying around in the semi-permanent mess of the Byers house. A messy drawing of some kind of creature with far too many limbs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy looks at Joyce and wonders whether she looks as pale as the older woman looks right now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Okay. Okay, I wanna try something," Owens announces. He shares a look with Tammy's mother, who nods, before he keeps talking. "It's gonna seem a little odd at first, but I think it's really gonna help us understand what's going on. Is that okay?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly, very slowly, Will nods a bit. "Okay."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then everything gets a bit out of control, because suddenly Tammy's mother is holding a blowtorch -and honestly, who in their right mind would think it is a good idea to give that woman a blowtorch? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Now, Will, I want you to just let us know if you feel anything. Okay?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margaret lights the blowtorch and holds it over the vine. The little thing starts screeching and it startles Tammy. What the fuck...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Do you feel anything?" Owens asks Will.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Little sting."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It stings? Where?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Some of the half dozen machines Will is connected to are beeping regularly, which adds an eerie feeling to the already fucked up situation. The vine screeches some more and Tammy clenches her fist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"My chest," Will grunts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Okay, son."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Sweetie..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joyce is so worried about her kid that she doesn't see Owens making a discrete signal to Margaret -but Tammy does. She watches her mother holding the blowtorch closer and closer to the little vine, which starts screeching louder and louder while the machines around Will begin to go crazy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"How about now?" Margaret asks. She sounds almost uninterested. As if the vine in front of her wasn't trying to squirm away from the flame, as if the kid in front of her wasn't panting and grunting in pain.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It... it burns," poor Will repeats. He suddenly screams at the same time that the vine's screeches get louder and the machines he’s hooked up to start to go crazy. Something brushes against Tammy and makes her flinch. But it’s only Mike, standing beside her and shaking in fear as he watches Will. "It burns!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Owens stares at Will. His hand is reaching out but it doesn't touch the kid, and it does a poor job offering any comfort. "Where?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"EVERYWHERE!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That's enough. That's enough!" Joyce screams.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But nobody listens to her, and Margaret keeps holding the flame near the vine for a few seconds too long, and Tammy acts on instinct. She watches herself like a character in a movie, elbowing her mother away from the vine and struggling to rip the blowtorch out of her hands once Margaret tries to put up a fight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, Tammy manages to grip the blowtorch by the hot end. Let's be honest, that isn't one of her brightest ideas.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>White, burning pain hits her like a wave but she can't even scream, all of Tammy's senses are focused on the way her skin melts against the red hot metal and then is promptly ripped right off when Margaret yanks the blowtorch away from her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's carnage. The room starts smelling of burnt flesh and the blood that is starting to pour out Tammy's hands -and now is when her body decides to make her start crying. Tammy howls in pain and feels her knees giving out half a second before they hit the floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can hear Joyce in the background, half losing her shit and half trying to console Will and Mike -who is crying a bit. A different struggle tells her that Bob has managed to finally AND safely take the blowtorch away from Tammy's mother. The girl is still wondering about how anyone would willingly give Margaret Thompson a fucking blowtorch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A big figure crouches down in front of Tammy and the girl almost jerks away before she realizes that it's Hopper. The man looks at her with a softness and a compassion that look terribly out of place in a guy that could snap her in two with his pinky finger. His presence is almost more comforting than the tingling on Tammy’s hands. Carefully, as if he was handling an injured animal, Hopper grips her wrists to stop her from shaking and further hurting herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hopper doesn't even seem to mind getting all that blood on him, doesn't even blink when Tammy's hands start growing back the skin and healing in front of his eyes. He just holds her together for the half a minute that takes Tammy to believe that her hands aren't about to fall to pieces.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You alright, kid?" he asks then, far more softly than Tammy expected. She nods a bit and he awkwardly pats her shoulder. "Good. Time to get out shit back together, huh? Come on, let's get you back up."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He basically pulls her back up on her feet and Tammy realizes that everybody in the room is staring at her. Joyce is covering her mouth with her hands, Bob looks a bit green and Mike is watching her with wide eyes and an open mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy would find this kind of interesting if Owens wasn't still in front of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" she screams at the doctor. "He's just a kid! What the fuck!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seriously, what is going on in the world? She doesn't believe herself a naive person, but what kind of borderline psychopath would treat Will like that? It's fucking madness!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Owens, however, just stares back coldly at her. "Right now? He's so much more than a kid."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"And so are you," Margaret adds as she walks closer. Before Tammy can get away, she grabs her wrist and forces her to show the tattoo to everybody in the room. Tammy hears Joyce's gasp and makes sure not to look at her. "You were never 'just kids'. Never forget that."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I can’t remember.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything is so wrong and so sick that Tammy wants to throw up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Owens starts talking shit about a virus and its host, about some kind of hive intelligence, but Tammy can't trust a single word that comes from his mouth. In her eyes he has gone from her mom's slightly bitchy boss to a man that will deliberately torture a kid to boost his ego and prove something that he already knows. He's fucking disgusting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He's disgusting and, somehow, still has the nerve to ask Tammy to let them run some tests on her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"No."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margaret pouts in a way that looks very out of character, taking into account how she had been torturing a kid minutes ago. "Tammy, baby, don't be silly..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I said NO," Tammy repeats, louder this time. "No means no. You aren't coming anywhere near me and neither are your fucking doctors. You say you want to run some tests?" Tammy smiles at her mother and Owens, although it feels more like baring her teeth at them. "Well, fucking test this. Someone check the time."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before anyone can stop Tammy, she grabs a scalpel from a nearby medical trolley and drives it into her guts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The good news is that it hurts far less than burning her hands on the blowtorch. The bad news is that Billy isn't going to be happy about all that blood on his hoodie. Well, at least it's black.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Joyce screams out her name and reaches out to Tammy, but both Hopper and Bob stop her. Tammy can already see the wheels turning in Hopper’s head, can see him counting the seconds and it makes her smile a little at the big guy. She takes out the scalpel (which is, by the way, the worst thing you can do when you've been stabbed) and just calmly waits until she can physically feel her skin and muscles knitting themselves back together. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Hopper, time?" Tammy asks. She can feel the tingling in her stomach, taste the blood that is dripping from her nose. The room has gone completely quiet and it makes her smile a bit. Maybe this will teach them to stop fucking with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Nine seconds."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy snorts. "What a coincidence. That's all you guys get. If you try anything funny, next time I stab someone it's not going to be me. Am I making myself clear?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nobody answers. Tammy ignores Owens and walks up to her mother. "Am I making myself fucking clear?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has never felt this powerful. Who would have thought it, that all it took was hurting herself in front of these people? Margaret stares back at her and nods the tiniest bit, swallowing down. Tammy smiles and tastes the blood slipping into her mouth. "Good." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-x-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Apparently, the less dangerous thing Tammy is going to do today is sneaking into an empty office to use its phone even though there are like six heavily armed guys walking up and down the hallway -but she needs this. Needs to feel that the world is still spinning out there, needs to be reassured that there’s still some kind of normalcy outside the lab.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"You alright, shitbird?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>If there’s something that reminds her of the existence of a real world outside the lab, that is Billy’s voice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"That's how you are going to say hi to your girlfriend?" Tammy asks, raising an eyebrow. Billy's snort on the other end of the line makes her roll her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Fuck off,"</span>
  </em>
  <span> he snaps, but she can tell that it's all bark and no bite. That, and that he's talking a bit too loudly in order to be heard over the music he's got blaring in the background.</span>
  <em>
    <span> "But for real. You scared me yesterday, I tried to follow you back home, but my dad..."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"Don't worry about it. I have your tape, by the way." Tammy takes it out of the pocket and runs her thumb over her friend's handwriting. "The '70s shit' one. It was in the hoodie I took."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Keep them. How... How are things back home?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She can't exactly tell him where she is, but even so, let's recapitulate. Her half-mad mother has taken Tammy to a shady government/army-run laboratory that has something to do with one, a rip in reality that created an interdimensional gate, two, the 009 tattoo that appeared on her wrist plus all the weird stuff related to it, and three, whatever is going on with Will Byers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"This is fine" Tammy deadpans.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Sure."</span>
  </em>
  <span> She can almost see Billy rolling his eyes. </span>
  <em>
    <span>"What about... You know what."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Billy's question feels a bit surreal, taking into account that Tammy is still holding against her stomach the rag Bob gave her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>("I know you healed yourself, somehow, but just... Just take it and press down," the poor man told her, still looking a bit green around the edges after everything that happened with the blowtorch and the scalpel. Tammy didn't have it in her to refuse the rag and at least it helped clean some of the blood.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Nothing else happened," Tammy lies, holding the bloodied rag in front of her and studying the way the blood spreads through the cloth. "And thank God for that. I slept at Steve's, he would have freaked the fuck out if I woke up full of scars..."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Harrington? Should I be worried about my girlfriend cheating on me?"</span>
  </em>
  <span> Billy teases her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Fuck off."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Blow me."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"You wished." They laugh a bit at their childishness before Tammy deflates. "I just... I don't understand anything. At all."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That's the biggest understatement ever. On the other end of the line, Billy sighs a little.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Alright, shitbird, I'll tell you what we'll do. I have to babysit the smaller shitbird for a while so she doesn't run off to her fucking boyfriend, but once my dad and Susan get back I'm picking you up. We are going to get fucking wasted, wake up wishing we were dead and then we'll think about whatever the fuck happened yesterday."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The mere mention of alcohol makes Tammy's guts twist around themselves, but she ignores it. "A man after my own heart," she smiles. "Pick me up at eight?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is no way she will still be at the lab by eight, she's getting out of there as soon as possible.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Sure. It's a date."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"And what a date." Tammy's snort makes Billy cackle. It feels like the beginning of one of those jokes... 'A lesbian and a gay walk into a bar...'. Something about what Billy has just told her catches Tammy's attention. "By the way, how comes that Max has a boyfriend? I thought she was far more likely to punch boys rather than to kiss them."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Ew." </span>
  </em>
  <span>She can almost see Billy grimacing at the idea of his step-sister kissing a boy. </span>
  <em>
    <span>"I dunno, don't ask me. It's the black kid, something Sinclair, goes around with Wheeler's brother and that little bunch of nerds."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Something about the way he says it makes Tammy go quiet for a few seconds and bite her lower lip. Neil Hargrove definitely seems to her like the type of man that has those prejudices, but she hadn't thought that Billy... "Are we... Against Max having a black boyfriend?"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Are you fucking stupid, Tam?"</span>
  </em>
  <span> Billy immediately snarls at her, any remainder of his good mood completely vanished. </span>
  <em>
    <span>"The kid could be fucking blue like a smurf for all I care. Use that fucking brain of yours. I'll pick you up at eight."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He hangs up before Tammy can say anything. Staring at the phone, Tammy resigns herself to the chore of unlocking yet another messed-up part of her friend. She shouldn't believe herself so above Billy, though. Tammy has plenty of messed-up parts herself. Sighing, she hangs up as well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>-x-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They won't let her leave. Neither Margaret and Owens nor Joyce, Hopper and Bob, although each set of adults wants to keep Tammy in the lab for different reasons. Joyce and the two other men want to keep her close in case something happens, while her mother and Owens still harbor some kind of hope that Tammy will let them run tests on her without Tammy threatening to stab somebody in the eye.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can't believe she's had to make that threat twice already.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She believes things would have gone very differently if it wasn't for Joyce's sharp eyes on Margaret. A girl with a scalpel has nothing to do against a dozen guards armed with both bullets and narcotic darts. Tammy quickly realizes that she doesn't want to be left alone with her own mother.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only thing she can do to entertain herself, other than phoning somebody (and she cannot exactly phone Steve, can she?) is talking a bit to the boys. Or trying to, at least. Mike is very wary of everybody and everything around them, including Tammy, something she considers a wise choice. The poor boy has seen her healing some serious burns and stabbing herself in the gut in a span of five minutes, it would be surprising if he trusted Tammy. Will is still in a very shaken state. The poor thing looks terrible, pale and sweaty and on the verge of passing the fuck out. However, both manage to stare at Tammy as if they were seeing a ghost.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mike in particular seems pretty agitated and is looking at her wrist whenever Tammy looks at him, seems like he wants to tell her something but doesn't dare to. Tammy can't exactly blame him. One doesn't meet a girl with a weird tattoo and even weirder abilities every day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tired of both kids staring at her without really answering any of her questions, Tammy starts searching through the room. It's obvious that it wasn't supposed to be a hospital room in the first place so it's pretty dull and boring, nothing to entertain themselves there. Not even pencil and paper...</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You can pick up the local radio with this."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy stares back at Mike. He's holding up a fancy-looking walkie-talkie, one that looks a bit too advanced for a kid like him to have. "Where did you get that?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"We are in the school's AV club," Mike offers as an explanation. Tammy rolls her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Of course you are."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pushes some buttons around and makes it so the walkie-talkie is only picking up the local radio. The three of them stay in silence for a little while, humming along whenever a song they know comes up... Tammy and Mike share a funny little moment when they start humming the intro to Under Pressure, each of them making the different noises -and Tammy gasps when she hears Will humming along really quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You like Bowie?" she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Yeah," the kid answers, almost too quietly to hear. He isn't looking at Tammy and is keeping his gaze firmly on the wall instead. "... Queen as well."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Cool."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mike rolls his eyes. "He only has good taste in music because his brother shares his tapes with him. Right, Will?" he teases.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Will's eyes move from the wall only to blankly stare at them. He doesn't seem to recognize them at all, which is pretty frightening, and Tammy can see Mike breaking down a little. "Will. Will?” the kid insists. Will doesn’t react. “Will!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mrs. Byers…” Tammy tries to stay calm for all of two seconds, and then Will starts shaking a little and she loses her shit. “JOYCE! HOPPER! BOB! Fucking ANYONE!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stops yelling because it goes all away as fast as it came in the first place. Will stops shaking and he actually looks a bit more awake and conscious of his surroundings, but it doesn’t calm Mike down at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What's wrong?” he keeps asking. “Are you hurting again?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy frowns because Will looks… Kind of surprised, actually. As if he were just realizing everything that was going on. But he has been conscious for little intervals of time, right? What is going on?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Uh... I saw something."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"In your now-memories?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What the fuck is a now-memory?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What does he mean?" Tammy asks, only to be immediately silenced by Mike.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"NOT the time!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The shadow monster. I think I know how to stop Him."</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>-x-</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The table is covered in polaroids. Pics from Joyce’s living-room, her kitchen, her rooms, all of them displaying the same things. Drawings. A map. Vines spreading beneath Hawkins, vines hastily drawn in dark blue crayon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy thinks of... -shit, it’s only been a day, right? It feels like so much more time has passed since she went into Melvald’s, since she talked to Joyce and noticed the dark blue crayon beneath her fingernails. The older woman must be thinking the same, because she makes eye contact with Tammy for a second and she immediately puts her hands into her pockets. Tammy can almost feel the guilt coming off her in waves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Honestly? It feels a little bit too good. It’s definitely nothing compared to how Tammy feels since she realized how big this conspiracy around her actually is. Her whole world went upside-down a year ago. The fact that she never even noticed scares the shit out of Tammy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first the scientists don’t seem to have much faith in their little plan… Wait, </span>
  <em>
    <span>their</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Since when is Tammy a part of </span>
  <em>
    <span>them</span>
  </em>
  <span>? She very much is not, taking into account how nobody will tell her further than </span>
  <em>
    <span>there is a rip in reality that leads into another dimension</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Anyways, they don’t seem to have much faith, but then Hopper intimidates them into shutting the fuck up and little Will points at an intersection on the map.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid tells them about how He doesn’t want him to see there and Tammy shudders. She still doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, because nobody will stop for two minutes to tell her, but it seems that Will is somehow connected to Him. To that dark thing crawling beneath their very feet, that being almost too big for Tammy’s brain to comprehend. Her heart aches for the kid. Being connected to such a monster? Being able to see </span>
  <em>
    <span>down there</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Sounds like both a nightmare and a one-way ticket to therapy sessions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Christ, at this rate Tammy should maybe tag along to those.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It seems that Owens’ men are going down there to do -something. Burn it, probably. The little bits of conversation Tammy has managed to catch lead her to that conclusion. At the same time… Has anybody fucking thought of what happened earlier when they tried to burn that little vine in front of Will? Has anybody thought about what will happen if they send a dozen people down there with blowtorches?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shouldn’t we maybe…” Mike starts talking, and then stops for a second. He’s apparently unable to look at either Will or Joyce so he looks at Tammy instead. “Shouldn’t we maybe sedate him?” he whispers. “Just in case it hurts him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s gone pale again, that kind of paleness that brings out his freckles and makes him look younger, and Tammy wants to cry. She already feels too young for any of this… How old are those kids? Twelve, thirteen? They are too young. Will is too young to be laying there, half-dead from his connection to a monster from another dimension. Mike is too young to be there trying to anticipate and prepare for his friend’s possible agony. The thought makes Tammy tear up and she barely keeps it together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I'm sorry."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Will’s voice is so unexpected that it snaps Tammy out of her head. Not because he’s talking, but… His voice, the way he speaks. It sounds nothing like the way he talked when he told them about the map. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A quick look around her tells Tammy that she isn’t the only one that has noticed. Joyce sends her an anxious look before she focuses on her kid. "What? What do you mean, sweetie?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"He made me do it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Who? Who made you do what?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy isn’t paying attention to them, focused on Mike instead. She can almost see the wheels turning in his head but she doesn’t know what any of it means, doesn’t understand Will’s words, can’t even soothe the kids like Joyce does. She’s fucking useless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I told you. They upset Him,” Will keeps insisting. This is the most stern Tammy has ever seen him -and at the same time he looks terrified. His voice breaks a little as he speaks. “They shouldn't have done that. They shouldn't have upset Him."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The spy."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy frowns. "What? I don’t understand..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The spy!” Mike yells once again. He runs out of the room so fast that he almost slams into the door on his way out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I don't understand," Tammy repeats. Mostly to herself, because nobody is listening. Her own impotence is eating her alive because she is forced to stay there, utterly clueless and out of the loop, watching Joyce doing her best to console a kid in the middle of some kind of attack -and there is nothing Tammy can do to help.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Will, sweets, talk to me. You got to help me understand..."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"It's too late."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It happens at the same time. Will stops shaking and trembling and stares at Joyce, frozen like a deer in the headlights -and something shifts inside Tammy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"You should go now."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A drop of blood drips from her nose but she barely registers it, because suddenly it feels like there are more people than there were in the lab a second before. Her breath hitches when Tammy dives into that feeling, in the way it moves around her like the faint currents down in the Quarry. Hundred -no, thousands of little currents, many of which feel odd and foreign and wrong…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tammy wants to scream, but she can’t. Can’t scream, can’t speak, can’t move, can barely breathe. She’s choking on the tears she hasn’t noticed rolling down her cheeks. There are too many bodies, too many wrong bodies moving in the wrong way and getting too close, so many that Tammy can't escape the feeling and it threatens to overwhelm her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tries to scream, but she can’t, and the only thing that Tammy can force out of her mouth are the words that Will pronounces at the same time. <em>"They are almost here."</em></span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>tammy: let me see what you have<br/>margaret: a blowtorch!!<br/>tammy: nO<br/>joyce: oh my god why does she have a blowtorch</p><p> </p><p>joyce screaming her head off at authority figures and hopper being an absolute dad are my aesthetic :)</p><p>quick clarification, tammy's powers have nothing to do with the gate or the mindflayer, but i thought it was funny to imagine this colossal eldritchian being from another dimension just. whistling back at some random girl.</p><p>the melody tammy whistles is the one from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JsaNjEMdA4">twisted nerve (1961)</a>. it would later appear as well in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZwsK36BzcY">kill bill volumen 1 (2003)</a> -and we all know whose mom stars in that movie.</p><p>yes, there are a few too many references to It. yes, those have their place in the plot. margaret has already explained everything, to be honest.</p><p>i also made owens kind of shadier than he was in the show but 1. he's being influenced by tammy's mother 2. he was kind of shady to begin with and i've always considered the blowtorch scene to be a dick move, so i'll roll with it</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>playlist:</p><p>· Rock You Like a Hurricane - Scorpions<br/>· Tainted Love - Soft Cell<br/>· Rebel Rebel - Bowie<br/>· Let's Dance - Bowie<br/>· Shout At The Devil - Mötley Crüe<br/>· Get Down, Make Love - Queen<br/>· We Will Rock You - Queen<br/>· Back In Black - ACDC<br/>· More Than A Feeling - Boston<br/>· Stuck In The Middle With You - Stealers Wheel<br/>· Iron Man - Black Sabbath<br/>· Stone Cold Crazy - Queen<br/>· Jump - Van Halen<br/>· Psycho Killer - Talking Heads<br/>· White Queen - Queen<br/>· Rock Me Tonite - Billy Squier<br/>· Dancing In The Dark - Bruce Springsteen<br/>· The Bitch Is Back - Elton John<br/>· Under Pressure - Queen &amp; David Bowie</p></blockquote></div></div>
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